Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
Whoops, put this to the wrong blog so I'm reposting it. Also got a bit of a backlog of chapters, so watch out for a quick flurry as I get this blog up to date on my fics!
Podfic for this chapter isn't up yet but hopefully will be ready soon. I'll update this note when that's changed!
<< Chapter 24
The chariot was crowded by Apollo kids the moment it touched down, and Lee didn’t know if his siblings were just that eager to see him and Michael arrive safely, or if they were intentionally making a wall between him and the rest of the campers, but he couldn’t say he minded, either way.
Chris pulled him to his feet and helped him stumble out, into the waiting hands of his siblings, who almost all seemed eager to latch onto him again. Kayla stayed separate, glaring daggers at Clarisse as the daughter of Ares once again picked up Michael and carried him out.
“Where’s the infirmary?” she demanded, and excited chatter in Lee’s ears faded into a shocked disbelief as his siblings realised exactly who she was carrying. A collective bristle made it obvious that it wasn’t popular, but Clarisse made no move to acknowledge the cabin’s opinion on who was carrying their head counsellor.
“This way!” Tris chirped, the only one that didn’t seem to care, and he tugged on Lee’s arm, making it clear that he expected Lee to go, too. Given Will was out of sight, there was only one place that particular little brother would be, so Lee went willingly, and Clarisse followed on right behind.
Nathan was the first occupant Lee spotted as they walked into the room that had clearly been set aside for medical treatment. While the population of the city weren’t all asleep where they’d stood, it was clearly a lounge area for the residents. There were still a few dozing mortals, but they were all clustered in one corner, either as a group or because the demigods had moved them over there so they could take over the rest of the space for the war effort.
Lee suspected the latter.
His blond brother was still unconscious, and Robyn was sat on a chair next to the couch they’d laid Nathan on, looking tired. Lee didn’t blame her.
Will was curled up in another chair, pale and ashen and eyelids drooping. He looked absolutely exhausted, and like he should’ve fallen asleep ages ago, but as Chris had mentioned, he was stubbornly refusing to.
It was to Will that Lee went first, kneeling on the floor in front of his little brother and pulling him into a hug. Will blinked blearily, taking a few moments to register him, before wrapping his arms around him tightly in return, burying his face into Lee’s shoulder. Like Tris, he’d had a growth spurt since Lee had last been at camp, but he was still comfortably shorter than Lee.
Lee didn’t have anything to say to Will, not right then when his little brother was barely awake. It was easier to just hold him in silence, feeling Will shaking in his arms and a tell-tale dampening in the fabric by his shoulder. Will wasn’t even fourteen yet, far too young for war.
All of them were too young for war, Lee included.
It wasn’t long before he felt Will go slack, and ran his fingers through messy blond waves a few times as the arms around him slowly slipped down, falling victim to gravity. The chair probably wasn’t the best place for Will to sleep, but Lee didn’t trust himself to carry any of his siblings, not with weakened wrists and ankles that were starting to demand a rest. It was easier to ease Will back into the chair, putting a cushion between his shoulder and his head to try and stop him getting a crick in his neck, before pulling away again.
Clarisse had put Michael down on a couch under Robyn’s direction, he saw as he turned back around, his younger sister clearly still not happy with Clarisse but not willing to risk Michael’s health with another argument. The daughter of Ares had situated herself on the other side of the room, afterwards – not a retreat, because Clarisse didn’t do retreats, but a concession that continuing whatever the argument was between her and Lee’s siblings wouldn’t help the war. Instead, she appeared to have tracked down Annabeth, and was having a hushed debate with her.
Lee wasn’t quite sure if it was a debate or an argument, especially when he heard Manhattan and army. Either way, he didn’t want to get involved with that. When they worked together, Clarisse and Annabeth were quite the force to be reckoned with. When they argued… Lee wasn’t technically responsible for either of them, and knew when to pick his battles. On a good day, he might try to mediate, but today was not a good day.
Well, it was a good day compared to the past year, but it still wasn’t a good enough day to deal with two headstrong teenage girls getting into an argument with each other, especially when they weren’t actually related to him, technically. Not in a way that anyone counted.
He turned his attention to the rest of his siblings, instead. Most of them had found themselves a corner to curl up in, finally letting themselves rest and recharge. Tris had been pulled into the bundle, which Lee was glad to see. He didn’t mind Tris clinging to him – he actually preferred it, a lot of the time, because that meant Tris was there and safe – but seeing the rest of their cabin doing everything in their power to help him reminded him why he loved his siblings so much.
Kayla, apparently predictably, had curled herself up on the floor by Michael’s couch, and despite clearly being as tired as the rest of them was attempting to keep some sort of guard, although her eyelids were drooping and Lee suspected it wouldn’t be long before she crashed out, like the others.
Outside of his own siblings, there were scattered bodies from other cabins laying around, too, with bandages and other signs of injury. Just because Kronos had gone for Williamsburg Bridge clearly didn’t mean he hadn’t also sent his army on a multi-headed attack, hitting all of the cabins. Lee hoped no-one had died.
Some of them were awake, and looking at him. Lee was trying to ignore that, because acknowledging it meant having to interact, and he was not ready for that.
Unfortunately, not everyone had the same thought process, and just because he could avoid the injured by not going near them didn’t mean he could avoid the still-mobile campers.
The Stolls walked in, bickering good-naturedly with each other the way they always seemed to do. In their arms were piles of bandages and painkillers, clearly liberated from the nearest pharmacies. Lee doubted they’d paid for them, but payment was probably the least of their worries right then.
They could sort that out later, once the war was over.
The two sons of Hermes looked around, clearly taking in the increase in bodies in the room since they’d left on their foraging mission, and from the way their eyes settled on the sleeping Will, Lee was pretty sure he knew who had sent them out to get supplies. Will was young, but he was already good at organising triage.
Then they spotted Lee, and froze in tandem, supplies spilling from their arms to the ground. They didn’t seem to care, even when Robyn groaned and swore at them from her seat, reluctantly dragging herself out of it to rescue them before they became unusable.
It was Travis who stepped forwards first, squinting at Lee like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“When did you rise from the dead?” he demanded, stalking around Lee at a distance. Lee felt a little like he was being stalked by a prowling lion, and did not like the feeling.
“I never died,” Lee said, and both brothers snorted.
“Clearly,” Travis drawled. “But that then begs the question – where have you been?”
They were glaring at him, both of them, and Lee got the sinking feeling that neither of them were going to take any explanation he had for them kindly. They weren’t even acknowledging Chris, who was in their line of sight as well, or Clarisse, but it was less ignorance and more a deliberate action. They’d never really got on with Clarisse, but they used to get on with Chris, before he left.
Apparently, they hadn’t forgiven him even though he’d returned to camp.
“It’s a long story,” Lee hedged, as the pair of them circled closer.
“Oi, assholes!” Robyn interrupted, popping up between Lee and the Stolls with her arms full of the discarded medical supplies. “No bothering the injured. Thanks for the supplies, now get out of my infirmary.”
Lee appreciated her efforts, he really did, but the Stolls didn’t look like they were going to give in so easily, and Robyn really needed her own rest.
“It’s okay,” he said, nudging her out of the way. “I’ll talk to them. You get some rest.”
Staying in the infirmary was only going to make it worse, because his siblings were going to keep interrupting, and the more of them that got woken up, the worse it was going to get. He gestured to the door with his head.
“Head counsellor meeting?” he suggested, because he knew he was tired and needed the rest – and yes, was technically injured and in need of at least a dose of ambrosia, and possibly something more for the soles of his feet – but there was no point leaving the confrontation hanging over him.
At least if it was a head counsellor meeting, he would only have to tell it once more, then he could go and rest and not have to think about it again – wishful thinking, he knew, but he clung to it anyway.
They eyed him suspiciously, but the words seemed to have caught the attention of both Annabeth and Clarisse, interrupting their argument.
“I agree,” the daughter of Athena said, even though she still looked a bit pale from whatever had happened to her on the bridge that Will had been so desperately recruited for. “I want answers, too.”
“Who’s representing cabin seven?” Connor asked, and that hurt a little. “It’s not Michael. Who’s next? Will?”
“Wake Will at your peril,” Robyn growled. “Lee is-”
“Lee hasn’t been head counsellor for over a year,” Travis overrode her. “He doesn’t count.”
Robyn didn’t like that at all, bristling into a scowl. Lee caught her shoulder and shook his head; it wasn’t worth the fight. It would also be nice to have another sibling in there with him, even if it couldn’t be Michael. Her scowl didn’t relent any, but when she shrugged his grip off, it was in surrender. “I’ll wake Joy,” she said, and stalked over to their sister to do exactly that.
“Silena isn’t here right now,” Annabeth said suddenly, as if only just remembering. “We should wait-”
“Drew can stand in, if she hasn’t broken a nail or suffered some other terrible injury,” Clarisse snarled, saving Lee from having to react to that . “This isn’t that fucking important.” She strode towards the door, putting her hand on Lee’s shoulder to guide him out as she did so. He let her, glad to know that he at least had one friend still amongst the other head counsellors. Joy caught up quickly, blinking sleep out of her eyes, and bracketed him on the other side as Travis barged past them to lead them into another, smaller room. Connor split off, presumably to call in the others.
The room Travis showed them to was fancy, a private room for high class functions. It hadn’t been in use when the city had fallen asleep, leaving it devoid of sleeping mortals, but there was a small bar at one end, and Travis didn’t waste any time grabbing himself a glass and pouring himself a drink of coke, full sugar and all.
He offered one to Annabeth, who declined, and another to Joy, who accepted. Neither Clarisse nor Lee were offered anything.
One by one, the other head counsellors, or most senior conscious campers, filed in. Most of them were familiar, even if it hurt to only see one blond head of hair and violet eyes, when there had always been two of them before. Katie had a bandage wrapped around her head, dried blood flaking off from her skin. Lee hoped it was just a scratch, and not a concussion. She didn’t look concussed at a glance. Drew, as always, looked like she had inspected the world and found it wanting, standing with crossed arms and scowling at the entire room, although her eyes widened when they landed on Lee.
Jake was next to appear, and he looked sooty but mostly uninjured. Seeing him was still a stab to the gut, because Lee hadn’t let himself think about who would’ve replaced Beckendorf, but of course it would’ve been Jake. He looked a little hollow, and Lee didn’t dare guess if that was because of Beckendorf’s death, or if he’d lost more siblings in the first night of fighting.
Percy was last to barrel in, from wherever he had been, immediately slipping into the seat next to Annabeth like a fish reeled in on a line. Thalia entered with him, looking exactly the same as Lee remembered her from about a year and a half ago, except for the new silver circlet in her hair, and flanked Annabeth on the other side.
She also eyed Lee consideringly, and Lee wondered how much the Hunters knew that the campers might not.
In total, there were eleven demigods there, aside from him, and only two of them had heard the full story – or as much as Lee could bring himself to tell. He didn’t know what Kronos had said to Percy about him, hadn’t been listening when he’d had a little brother to save instead. Annabeth hadn’t liked how easily she’d thought Michael had trusted him, not knowing that Michael had tested him.
No-one else had known he was back at all, and all of them were looking at Lee.
Travis broke the silence. “Well, you called this,” he said, waving his glass of coke around almost carelessly. If he hadn’t already chugged half of it, the drink probably would’ve been at risk of spilling with the movement. “So, explain. Where have you been, Lee? If it’s really you at all.”
“It’s him,” Joy and Clarisse immediately said, his sister using her voice as well as exaggerated and frustrated movements to sign as well, while Clarisse simply snapped the words out.
“Michael did some sort of test when he arrived,” Annabeth did say, although she sounded begrudging. “I don’t know what he tested, but he seemed convinced, too.”
“Kronos called him Lee,” Percy said, and Lee had really, really hoped Percy wasn’t going to bring up the titan, but of course he had. Unfortunately, the son of Poseidon wasn’t done, fixing Lee with his deep, sea-green eyes, and continuing. “It sounded like you’ve been with him.”
That got a reaction, several demigods rushing to their feet, weapons leaping into their hands.
Joy jumped up, too, moving to stand in front of Lee. Clarisse stayed where she was, leaning back in a chair nonchalantly and not making a single movement for her spear, which she’d propped up against the arm of her seat. Thalia also stayed still, watching him with her bright eyes.
Lee sighed. Their reactions made sense, even if he hated them. Of course Kronos would sow just enough doubt in Percy to make Lee’s return awkward, and possibly rejected entirely. He expected nothing less from the titan, even if he hated it.
He nudged Joy aside, appreciating her defence but knowing that he needed to make his own case if he was going to get anywhere.
“Not by choice,” he said. “I know it doesn’t look good for me. I get that. But I promise, it really wasn’t by choice.”
He didn’t like showing his injured wrists, but they were pretty solid evidence that he hadn’t been in Kronos’ company willingly, so he held both up, offering them to the others to look at and hoping it was enough.
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
As always, @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic! Previous chapters are being filled in slowly; I’ll make a note when the gap is gone!
This chapter comes with a warning for a brief scene featuring suicide ideation by a depressed character.
<< Chapter 30
Listen to chapter 31 on AO3
Lee discovered the problem with borrowing Michael’s bow as soon as he and Tris returned to the foyer of the Empire State Building and he saw the grip Kayla had on it. He didn’t even have to ask to know that there was no way the girl was going to give him her favourite brother’s prized bow just because he said Michael had said he could use it.
The only person that was going to convince her would be Michael himself.
“Kayla,” he called, walking over to her. She turned sharply, eyeing him suspiciously. “Michael’s awake.”
Immediately, her eyes went large and hopeful, and Lee directed her to the elevator so she could see him for herself. Michael could take care of the rest – he’d see her still holding his bow and make sure it ended up in Lee’s hands before the battle started.
Then, he went to seek Joy and Robyn out, because they had to divide their cabin in two and he had some ideas, but he didn’t know where all of the younger ones would be best suited. His sisters would know that better.
“We need Kayla down here,” Robyn said when he got the three of them into a huddle, leaving Tris and the others to keep an eye on the injured. She didn’t seem at all happy about it, though. “I know she’s only eleven, but with Michael and Nathan down, she is our best archer. She’ll give Michael a run for his money in a few years without a doubt.”
Joy nodded, although she was clearly equally unhappy about it. Lee had been hoping otherwise, but if he was honest, he’d already known Kayla was good – she even had Clarisse’s praise, as veiled as it was, and that wasn’t easy to get.
“Sally needs to go up,” he said, and neither of them protested that. Sally wasn’t the best healer either – her skills were firmly in poetry with not much branching out into either healing or combat – but she could keep Will company and fetch and carry for him if nothing else. “How about Austin?”
“Also a better fighter than a healer,” Robyn said. “I’d like to put him out of the way with Will and Sally but I don’t think we can justify it.” She eyed him. “Honestly, you should be up there, Lee.”
Lee shook his head. “I’m fighting,” he said. “Michael’s lending me his bow.”
“That’s why you sent her to see him,” Joy noted, the smile on her face shining in amusement as she signed. Lee shrugged. He was not above using siblings against each other to manipulate them, and both sisters had been campers long enough to know that. Kayla would no doubt figure it out quickly, too.
“Anyone else we can spare?” he asked hopefully, and tried not to be too dejected when they both shook their heads in tandem. He’d expected that answer, having gone through the youngest two individually.
“Not injured enough to excuse it, and we do need healers down here in the first instance,” Robyn grumbled. “I want Elias on healing before fighting where possible, though.”
Joy nodded, and Lee wasn’t going to argue.
“So – primary fighters,” he said. “Me, Kayla, you-” he gestured to Joy. “Who else?”
“Sam,” Joy signed, a sign he didn’t recognise before finger-spelling their brother’s name out. She hadn’t known Sam long enough to determine a name sign for him the last time they’d spoken about him, last year – before the battle in camp. Lee quickly added the sign to his mental bank of name signs.
“And Austin,” Robyn finished. “He’s not picking up healing very quickly. Why aren’t you putting yourself as a healer, Lee?”
He grimaced. “I’m still running on empty on that front,” he admitted. “Turns out we’re solar powered enough that being cut off from the sun for a year did a number on my healing. I can do something in a pinch, but that’s going to have to be assumed a last resort that might not work properly.”
Both of them looked furious. Robyn was almost spitting as she forced out her next words.
“So. Healers.” She gestured to herself. “I’m in charge. Alice and Elias will be able to keep up with battle triage and healing, too. How’s Tris right now?”
“Stronger than me but weaker than he could be,” Lee admitted. “But keep him in your team. He can still triage no problem, at least.”
“So could you,” Robyn noted. “You don’t need energy for that, and you’re the most experienced of all of us.”
She had a point but Lee still shook his head. “We need two leaders down here,” he said, with an apologetic look at Joy, who would be leading the archers, if Lee wasn’t barging in. She waved him off – they both knew that she’d have to keep using her voice in battle, especially with her hands full of bow, and it would be difficult for her.
“The Ares kids had better be bringing you some spare armour,” she signed, though, and the thought hadn’t occurred to Lee. Neither he nor Clarisse had mentioned armour or weapons to Ellis when he’d called. He shrugged and she frowned.
“You need something,” she insisted, tapping at his chest, which also drew his attention to the fact that he was still in a purple t-shirt, unlike everyone else’s orange, beneath their armour.
“I’ll figure something out before the fighting starts,” he said. “Also – where’s Michael’s quiver? I know he’s out of arrows but I’ll need something.”
Both girls hesitated and glanced at each other, before Robyn groaned. “Back at the hotel,” she said. “We took his and Nathan’s off of them and didn’t bother to bring them with us, given they’re not going to be fighting.”
“Okay,” Lee sighed. “I’ll go-”
Two hands latched onto his arms firmly, and both his sisters glared at him.
“You will not,” Joy signed one handed, the negative a harsh movement.
“Sam!” Robyn yelled, and their younger brother hurried over to them. “Go back to the hotel, we need all the discarded quivers. Take someone with you.”
Lee did not want his younger siblings going out in such a small group, but Sam nodded and disappeared, snagging Alice and Elias in the process. Austin tried to follow, but Sally held him back and he huffed, sitting down on the floor and fiddling with his saxophone instead.
“You need to rest, if you’re insisting on fighting tonight,” Robyn told Lee firmly. “And let me see those wrists of yours. Michael’s bow is no joke and you haven’t drawn a bow in too long.” He didn’t fight her as she unravelled Chris’ neat bandaging and sang a healing song over each wrist. Her healing was far more powerful than Lee remembered it being, but it did what it needed to. The bruising and welts barely changed, but he could feel the bones and muscles strengthening.
It was almost more than he knew Will could do, and Robyn wasn’t that good. From the glance she sent the sun, she knew it, too.
Well, neither of them were going to complain if Apollo decided to bolster their healing for the war. Nor would anyone else. Lee sent their father a silent prayer of thanks.
They separated. Robyn sought out Sally and sent her up to Olympus, complete with instructions to get Kayla to come back before dark, before snagging Tris and taking him over to the area of the foyer she had commandeered as the triage centre. Lee and Joy only had Austin to round up for the moment, but that was okay, because Lee needed to know what his little brother could do.
Austin didn’t have a bow, just the saxophone. But he did also have a quiver of darts tucked away, and at some coaxing revealed a blowpipe hiding inside the saxophone.
“Dad gave it to me!” he proclaimed, gesturing at the saxophone as a whole. “I have another one for playing, but this one…” He proceeded to explain all of the weird and wonderful features the dubbed combat saxophone had hidden inside it. A lot of them weren’t actually the most useful for head on fighting, but between the blowpipe and the saxophone, Austin had enough that Lee was at least as confident as he could be that the younger boy would be able to keep himself alive whilst taking down a couple of monsters, and that was by far the most important thing.
Lee was not planning on losing any siblings today. If possible, he didn’t want to lose anyone at all, but he was uncomfortably aware that it was war, and war didn’t tend to end without casualties.
They were trying not to kill the opposing demigods, he’d discovered, and while he didn’t want them dead, he was uncomfortably aware that at least some of Kronos’ demigods had no such qualms, which put them at an automatic disadvantage. It was much, much harder to put someone down and keep them there without killing them.
Over the afternoon, more and more demigods trickled in. The trio that had gone out to retrieve the abandoned quivers were quick to return, and Joy had snagged Sam while the other two were directed towards Robyn and Tris. Lee had to loosen the straps on Michael’s quiver before it would fit around his waist snugly; Nathan’s quiver would have fit him better without the adjustments, but it was also bloody, and given his brother’s reaction when he’d seen him earlier, he didn’t think it was right to use his.
Michael, at least, had given permission to use his bow, and Lee could extrapolate that out to his quiver without feeling guilty about it.
Kayla finally came back down from Olympus a couple of hours later, when most of the demigods had arrived and were starting to trap the area. The Hephaestus campers were working closely with the Hermes kids to make some of the roads in the vicinity all but impassable, so they could focus their forces on the section that was easier to hold.
“Michael said to give you this,” she said, and she clearly didn’t like it, but she did hold out Michael’s bow to Lee, who accepted it gratefully. “Don’t damage it. He got it from Dad.”
Lee knew that. It had caused a bit of a stir in the cabin at the time, when Michael had woken up one morning with a bow in his arms and no inclination to let anyone else near it. It had taken them several weeks to get him to actually keep it in the armoury where it was supposed to be – Lee was certain that Chiron had known about the bow being kept in the cabin despite the no bows in cabins rule, but the centaur had never confronted them about it. Lee wasn’t actually sure if anyone outside of the cabin knew it was a godly gift – Michael didn’t advertise it.
Even now, years later and far less prickly towards his siblings than he’d been when he was eleven, Michael was still protective of his bow. There were very few people allowed to hold it, and even less allowed to shoot it. Lee hadn’t been in the latter category before, and appreciated his brother extending it to include him for the war.
“I know,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
There was always a risk of weapons breaking, even ones gifted by gods – Lee remembered when Clarisse’s first spear had broken, the combination of her shock that it could, and her fear that Ares would be angry about it. She’d become a lot more protective of the next one she’d received. But as a general rule, weapons from the gods tended to be hardier, and more difficult to break.
Lee had no intention of testing just how much Michael’s bow could take.
He tested the weight of it, even though there wasn’t really any need. The bow had been Michael’s from eleven to sixteen, and hopefully for many more years to come, and had adapted to what Michael could comfortably draw over the years. Lee wasn’t Michael, but it still drew back smoothly, feeling the same weight as his own bow. He held it at full draw long enough for his arms to start to shake, mostly to test his own endurance as well as the bow’s settled weight, before releasing the tension slowly, very aware of Kayla’s judgemental look.
She was testing him, making sure she could trust him with Michael’s bow, and that wasn’t really her call to make but Lee wasn’t going to call her out on it. He was curious about her own background, though, because she was clearly an experienced archer. She also used a modern recurve, rather than any of the more traditional unsighted bows favoured by most of the cabin, and that implied formal training before camp, in a mortal setting.
“When did you start shooting?” he asked her as he settled Michael’s bow on his back, secure and out of the way for the moment.
She shrugged at him. “Don’t remember,” she said. “Da’s an archery coach.”
It took Lee a moment to parse the words and realise that she had to be one of the demigods with two parents of the same gender. They weren’t common, but they weren’t unheard of, either. He’d had a few siblings with two dads before, although Kayla was the only one in camp right then.
“That explains a lot,” he said. “You’re good.”
“I know,” she said, puffing her chest out with no sense of modesty at all. “I’m going to be better than Michael one day.”
Lee didn’t think Michael was planning on letting his superiority be stripped away quite that easily, but he also thought that Michael recognised that she might – otherwise he’d be treating her more like Nathan, who’d always said that and been laughed off because he was good but Michael was better. If Michael had laughed Kayla off, he didn’t think she’d be so attached to him.
“Michael’s the best archer I know,” he said neutrally, instead of taking sides. “Did you know he can even outshoot some of Lady Artemis’ Hunters?” Not all of them, of course – the blessing of a goddess and centuries of archery experience did put several of them in a different league entirely – but the younger ones he had definitely outshot before. Lee remembered the last time it happened.
He also remembered the resulting carnage, because Michael had not been a graceful victor and the Hunters hadn’t taken kindly to it. Never let it be said that Michael couldn’t cause a lot of chaos with his attitude sometimes, and it wasn’t always with Clarisse.
“Are they that good?” Kayla sniffed, and Lee was glad that none of the girls in question were in earshot right then, because that would’ve sparked its own fight if they had been.
“They’re very good,” Lee said firmly. “They all have Lady Artemis’ direct blessing.”
He recognised that look on Kayla’s face. It was the same one that Michael pulled when he sensed a challenge.
“Why don’t we arrange another competition after the war?” he said pointedly, knowing that Kayla wasn’t going to settle until she’d tried to outshoot the Hunters, but also that trying to outshoot them in a war would be a very, very bad idea. “Michael would love another go at them, too.”
That got her to pause, although she squinted at him suspiciously. “Fine,” she said mulishly. “After the war.”
Hopefully he could sort something light-hearted out with Thalia before Kayla tried to issue any challenges herself. Not all of the Hunters were automatically anti-campers, it would just be a case of working with Thalia on the topic.
While the Hunters hadn’t made an appearance, the rest of the campers seemed to have arrived, and Lee left Kayla under Joy’s watch, asking both of them to divvy up whatever arrows they had left that were useable between those of them that weren’t in Olympus. The fighters would need more than the healers, but all of them needed at least some.
Clarisse was prowling around just outside the door, glowering up at the sky as the sun got lower, past the tops of the highest buildings. It wouldn’t be long before sundown, and Kronos’ attack, and the Ares cabin hadn’t arrived yet. Chris was leaning against the doorway, watching her but not intercepting her movement.
Maybe Lee should do the same, but he moved to join her instead.
“You need some fucking armour,” Clarisse greeted him as he fell into step next to her. “And some arrows.” Her eyes flickered to the quiver on his hip, one that Lee knew she recognised. Michael had used the same one for years.
“The cabin are redistributing what we’ve got left at the moment,” Lee told her. “I’ll have arrows soon.”
She huffed. “That’s the problem with you archers,” she muttered, not for the first time and no doubt not for the last, either. It never failed to wind Michael up, but Lee could see her point – it was frustrating when they ran out of ammunition, but until the war, it had never been a problem. Not in the safety of camp. “The bastard really isn’t fighting?”
Her eyes were on Michael’s bow now, and she didn’t look comfortable about it.
“Not tonight,” Lee said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to keep him back longer than that, though. Broken ribs or no.”
“Bastard heals fast,” Clarisse acknowledged. She looked away from Lee and his borrowed weapons, scanning the streets instead – searching for her siblings.
Lee understood. He was searching, too. If Silena had found a way to get rid of them, despite them being on guard, then they were in trouble. It was no exaggeration to say that they needed the Ares cabin to bolster their front line if they were going to hold the block overnight – or even just the building itself.
Silver flickered in the corner of his eye, and a familiar face appeared in front of them, just out of range of Clarisse’s spear.
With the recent revelation that some of the Hunters were his sisters, Phoebe was pretty much at the top of Lee’s suspect list. The red-haired Hunter had been a Hunter for as long as he’d been a camper, and he was certain that she’d seen hundreds, if not thousands, of years. She was high enough up the hierarchy without being openly special that it would make sense.
She also was particularly dismissive of camp, and the Apollo cabin in particular. She and Michael got into howling arguments that turned into fights, and separating them was hard.
Her eyes lingered on Lee for a moment, before she focused on Clarisse.
“Thalia sent me to alert you,” she said. “Your cabin reached the Plaza Hotel and are now on the way here. Silena is leading them.”
Clarisse’s prowling came to a halt, and a satisfied glint lit up in her eye. “Good,” she said, and Lee was very glad he wasn’t her enemy right then. She turned her head back to Chris, who was in sight and just about earshot. “Warn Drew!”
That was going to get messy, quickly.
Phoebe disappeared again, blending into the cityscape unfairly well for someone wearing silver, as Clarisse then turned to Lee.
“Do you want to still be here when they get here?” she asked him, and that was the question. Silena didn’t know that she’d been exposed, and if she didn’t see him or Tris, she wouldn’t have any reason to – until Drew lashed out, which wouldn’t take any time at all.
He didn’t really want to see that fight, and he didn’t really want to see Silena ever again.
There would be no way to avoid her, though. It would be better, in the long run, to get the confrontation over with now, before the fighting. Before a distraction got someone killed.
He and Silena had already caused one death between them, and that was one death too many. Lee wouldn’t let there be another.
“No,” he admitted. “But I’m staying anyway.”
She clasped his shoulder firmly. “I’m with you,” she said.
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
As always, @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic! Previous chapters are being filled in slowly; I’ll make a note when the gap is gone!
This chapter comes with a warning for a brief scene featuring suicide ideation by a depressed character.
<< Chapter 29
Listen to chapter 30 on AO3
Getting Michael to the chariot when it returned for him was entertaining. Michael had never liked being carried around – Lee remembered more than one occasion where he’d been injured and kicked up a massive fuss even when there wasn’t any alternative to moving him – and today was no exception.
If Lee could’ve carried him, he would, but no-one was going to let him, sending pointed looks at his bandaged wrists and ankles when he even suggested it. Chris didn’t even offer, even though he could have done, but Michael was scarcely acknowledging him anyway, so Lee could see why he hadn’t.
It was quickly becoming apparent that most of the camp hadn’t actually forgiven Chris for his year working for Kronos, even if they begrudgingly accepted him as a camper again, and Lee found himself worrying a little about what that meant for him and Tris, technically also returnees from Kronos’ army even if they’d never joined in the first place.
Although in Michael’s case, it was just as likely that he was snubbing Chris because he was dating Clarisse. Lee suspected it was a mixture of the two, although when Chris insisted on helping Lee walk, despite the fact his feet were now treated and he had shoes, there was a grudging respect flickering in Michael’s eyes, so perhaps all was not quite lost there.
It was Jake that picked him up, the only option left – Robyn and Tris were both taller than Michael, too, but both of them were skinny and wiry and not really strong enough to keep Michael steady as they moved. Michael grumbled a little, but didn’t openly protest, hopefully aware enough of the fragile state of his ribcage to know that trying to physically fight wouldn’t end well for him.
No-one told him it had been Clarisse that had carried him in. Lee was pretty certain no-one was ever going to tell him.
Still, even with Jake’s care, as Lee followed him out of the hotel, Chris on one side of him and Tris pressed against the other, being moved clearly hurt Michael. Hisses of pain escaped from between clenched teeth, and small beads of sweat started to appear at his hairline, not quite hidden by the hair that had partially escaped his hairstyle and was hanging partially over his forehead.
It didn’t help that there were other demigods around that weren’t asleep. Thankfully, Clarisse wasn’t one of them – that confrontation would’ve been ill-timed – but while the awake demigods were moving around, doing their own things in preparation for the retreat to their new front line, eyes still found Michael.
And Lee.
Clearly what had been revealed at the head counsellor meeting that morning had spread like wildfire. Lee wasn’t surprised – camp was a veritable rumour mill at the best of times – but it made him uneasy, not knowing how many of them trusted him, anymore. Not knowing how many of the eyes on him were suspicious, rather than pleased to see him.
He hoped at least some of them were happy that he was back.
It wasn’t difficult to spot the Aphrodite campers. They appeared to be sleeping in shifts in the foyer of the hotel, and Drew had clearly shared the bad news with them. Most of them looked like they’d been crying; some had attempted to cover the signs up with make-up, but it didn’t look like their hearts had been in it, because it hardly did the job at all.
Drew was still awake, sitting in one of the chairs like it was her throne. She hadn’t done anything about her broken nails, but that and her slightly dusty armour were the only imperfections in her appearance. Anything else had been tightened and neatened up, leaving her almost looking like she hadn’t spent the previous night fighting.
It was impressive, really.
Her dark eyes, surrounded by mascara and sheltering beneath pink eyeshadow, locked onto Michael as he was carried outside. Lee couldn’t read her expression, behind the make-up and the carefully blank look, but she seemed intent on him regardless.
Then her gaze flickered over to Lee, instead, not drifting towards his visible bandages like most people seemed to, but watching his face. What she was looking for, he didn’t know. He didn’t know if she found it, either.
Technically, there wasn’t room for all of them in the chariot, but they made do. Robyn refused to be left behind to walk, and when Lee suggested he stay behind, it was immediately shot down by everyone.
He listened because one of them was Michael, who was making it clear in his own way that he needed Lee’s presence, at least for a little longer, and who was Lee to deny him that?
It was a short journey. They only bothered lifting off because the roads were still jammed with idling cars, so the chariot wouldn’t have been able to trundle along the streets. Clearly, a landing strip had been cleared in front of the entrance to the Empire State Building, because cars were haphazardly pushed together to leave a deliberate gap that looked out of place compared to the rest of the idling cars. Those cars also weren’t idling, as though their ignitions had all been turned off.
The pegasi landed with practiced ease, and Robyn hopped out as soon as they were stationary, reaching back to help Tris off. Chris caught Lee before he could jump out himself and helped him with the step down. His ankles still jarred a little bit, but he shot Chris a grateful smile.
By the time Jake had disembarked, a still unimpressed Michael in his arms, Robyn had forged her way into the foyer, leaving the door forcibly open so Jake could carry Michael in without issue.
Inside was chaos. Organised chaos, because Lee’s siblings had years of practice organising treatment centres between them, but chaos nonetheless. The walking wounded didn’t seem particularly happy about being relocated – most of them clearly thought they were still fit to fight on the front lines, rather than being the defensive line, and Joy was being talked over as she tried to get them to settle down and listen.
His sister was looking very frustrated as her hands flew around, jagged movements that emphasised just how irritated she was getting with them. Lee almost went over to sort it out himself, even though he knew not everyone was going to listen to him, either, but then Robyn barged in, hands on hips and snapping back, and he could acknowledge that it was all under control.
Will was the better healer, and had more infirmary experience, but Robyn was older. Lee suspected they’d been tag-teaming the responsibility of the infirmary between them – Michael wouldn’t have just handed it to them, when it was technically his responsibility as the head counsellor, but also Michael was terrible at healing and everyone knew it. Even if he was technically in charge, Robyn and Will would’ve been the ones handling the practical side of it.
Still, if Michael had been a little less injured and capable of escaping Jake’s hold, he certainly would’ve stormed straight over in much the same way as Robyn to rescue Joy from misbehaving patients.
As it was, he was carried past the scene with a frustrated growl, towards the elevator. The doorman that usually guarded it had gone, probably showing a sense of self-preservation. Lee didn’t blame them.
It made it a lot easier to get to Olympus, though. Chris didn’t come with them, quietly telling Lee that he was going back to the hotel and catching that nap he’d promised. He could’ve napped on Olympus, but Lee recognised that he wanted to get back to Clarisse.
Lee hoped the Ares cabin made it before nightfall, for Clarisse’s peace of mind as much as the need for the bulk of their front line fighters.
The elevator up to Olympus was familiar enough to Lee. He’d visited several times over the years – the only times he’d ever met his father in person – and the elevator music was different every time. Usually it was pop of some sort. This time it wasn’t, and Lee wasn’t really sure what to think of the fact it had chosen to play one of Holst’s Planets this time – specifically Mars, Bringer of War.
It almost felt pointed, given that Lee now knew that the Roman gods also existed in some capacity.
When the elevator doors opened onto Olympus, they were greeted by one of the minor goddesses. Lee didn’t recognise which one, exactly, but when she gestured for them to follow her, there wasn’t really a way to say no.
“The injured are in Lord Apollo’s shrine,” she told them. “We cannot assist you directly, but my sisters and I have ensured the area is as appropriate for healing as possible.” Jake didn’t seem surprised, but then he had already carried Nathan and Ignacy up.
Lee sent a grateful thought to his father for the use of his shrine as they hurried up the slope. Apollo had several shrines in Olympus, as well as his palace. The palace was too far from the entrance to be convenient, but the shrine they were led to was close enough, whilst out of the direct line between the entrance and the throne room. He hoped the fighting wouldn’t reach Olympus itself, but if it did, it was reassuring to know that Will and the injured wouldn’t be directly in Kronos’ path.
Will was talking to another goddess as they arrived, wide-eyed and reverent. Lee assumed she was one of the other sisters, and tried to think which sisters they might be part of. There were several, amongst the minor goddesses, although the obvious ones were the Muses.
The Muses weren’t healers, though.
Jake didn’t wait for direction before putting Michael down on the cot – there were actual cots – next to the blond mop of hair belonging to Nathan.
Lee barely noticed the son of Hephaestus crossing the area to his own brother, because Nathan moved, and immediately he put himself in between Michael and Nathan – not to separate them, despite their occasional arguments, but so he could see both of them at once. Tris followed him, looking at Nathan with wide eyes.
Nathan was a wreck. He’d clearly been awake long enough to realise his arm was gone, because he was glaring at the sky and pointedly not looking at it.
“Either Will is also dead, or he was telling the truth and you’re alive,” his brother said, not looking at him. His voice was hoarse, as though he’d screamed it raw. Lee didn’t want to know if that had happened while he was being torn apart, or after, when he’d woken up to discover that he had been torn apart. It was also flat, and unimpressed.
“We’re alive,” Lee told him. “All of us.” He didn’t reach out to touch him. Nathan’s body was stiff, likely in pain but possibly something else as well. Michael wasn’t the only one that could have a temper, if he was riled. Part of Lee thought that putting the two of them next to each other might prove to be a mistake.
“Will also said you saved me,” Nathan continued, still not looking at him. He didn’t sound thankful, and his red-rimmed eyes were flat and lifeless. “Why?”
Lee winced. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked. “You’re my brother, Nathan, and I’m sorry I was so late.”
“You shouldn’t have done.” That hurt, and Lee’s eyes welled up with tears. “That was selfish.”
Gods. Lee felt tears welling up in his eyes, and grabbed for Tris when his younger brother tried to lunge for Nathan and give him a hug. It had worked with Michael, it had helped Lee.
Right then, it would just make Nathan tear into Tris, too, and Lee couldn’t let it happen.
He couldn’t apologise, either. He hoped that once the shock wore off, once Nathan started to heal, he’d understand. Hopefully, he’d be willing to try to heal, in time. Because Lee couldn’t apologise for saving his brother’s life, even if that did make him selfish.
On his other side, Michael snarled quietly. Lee considered getting him moved, because Will did not need to be dealing with an argument between their two volatile brothers on top of the rest of his stress. Leaving him in charge of the worst injured, away from the fighting, made sense from a practical point of view, but it was a lot of responsibility to put on a thirteen-year-old boy.
“Michael,” he warned lowly, looking back at him, away from Nathan. He looked frustrated, but he was also looking at Nathan in confusion, like their younger brother was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. His eyes flicked up and down, before they widened in horror.
Lee snatched a quick glance back at Nathan, trying to follow Michael’s eyeline, and had his own moment of dawning horror before there was movement in his periphery and Michael was trying to sit up.
None of them had told him how Nathan was injured. They’d told him that it was bad, but no details, because Michael had had other things to worry about – Kronos, and then himself – and Michael had clearly just spotted the bandaged shoulder.
More specifically, the lack of an arm.
Nathan was left-handed, and it was a small blessing that it was his right arm that was gone, as much as there could be any silver linings to the situation, so he still had his dominant arm, but… Nathan was an archer, and his right arm was his bow arm.
A glance back at Michael showed that he’d gone white, and his chest was rising and falling faster, which had to be excruciating with his injuries. Michael was an archer, too, before he was anything else – he and Nathan had always had that in common. Losing an arm, being unable to even hold his bow, would be one of his worst nightmares.
And now he was watching his younger brother go through exactly that. Michael and Nathan clashed a lot, both headstrong and a little too cocky in their skills, sometimes – Michael was the better archer, they both knew it, Nathan didn’t like it – but despite that, Michael viewed Nathan as family. Lee knew he did, the same way he knew that to Michael, he had no mortal family at all, despite that legally not being the case. Legally, he had a mother, a stepfather, and a handful of half-siblings from his mother, but Michael acknowledged none of them.
Michael was picky, about family. Prickly about it, too, but when he added someone to the list, they were his and woe and betide anyone or anything that hurt his family, because Michael had Apollo’s temper and Apollo’s vengeance as well as Apollo’s love, and that was sometimes a dangerous combination.
Lee decided he didn’t need to separate them, after all.
“Michael, stop that.”
Will strode over, looking both delighted that Michael was awake and also fuming that Michael was doing stupid things like trying to move with broken ribs. The goddess he’d been talking to had disappeared.
“Will-”
“No,” Will snapped, hands landing on Michael’s shoulders and firmly but carefully persuading him to lay back down again. Michael wasn’t a good patient at the best of times, but Will had the magic touch with him – a perk of being Michael’s first little brother, Lee knew. Will got away with all sorts of things that their other siblings didn’t stand a chance with.
Then again, Will got away with all sorts of things with Lee, too, if he was honest. He was just the right mix of sweet and unbearably stubborn to manage it. It usually wasn’t worth the fight – and if he was in a sweet mood, he was well behaved, anyway.
“You have broken ribs, Michael,” their brother scolded. “And they are bad. If you puncture your lungs again I will let you suffocate.”
He wouldn’t actually. At least, not for too long. He might leave Michael struggling for a minute or so to prove a point, though. Will was not above being petty and using threats to get his patients to behave, which Lee was pretty sure he was supposed to discourage but had never quite managed.
See: sweet but also unbearably stubborn.
Michael’s eyes were still on Nathan, but he did lay back down again, and grabbed one of Will’s hands in the process.
The simple action had Will’s lip quivering a little, because he was still only thirteen and being tasked with entirely too much responsibility.
Lee wanted to give him a hug, but it was clearly Michael that Will was seeking the comfort from right then, probably because Michael was the one with the serious injuries that had come too close to death mere hours earlier. Maybe also because he’d adjusted to Michael as his head counsellor, too.
“I’m going back down,” he told all of his siblings. “I’ll try and get back up before the battle starts again but if Kronos comes earlier…” He trailed off with a shrug when Michael’s eyes snapped to him.
“You’re fighting?” he demanded.
“I’m still fit,” Lee said.
“You don’t have weapons or armour,” his brother said flatly, and his eyes flickered over to Tris as well. “Neither of you do.”
Lee hadn’t been planning on letting Tris fight at all, but when he looked over at Tris, he saw a look of stubbornness that was going to be very difficult to dissuade. The worst thing was that, despite his age and his bruises, Tris was technically fit to fight – both less injured and more rested than most of their siblings. He was also a pretty good fighter.
“Where’s my bow?” Michael asked. “Is it-?”
“Kayla has it,” Will said. Lee had lost track of the bow a long time ago, but somehow wasn’t surprised by that. “It’s fine.”
“Use it,” Michael told Lee, who hadn’t expected that. “If I’m fucking stuck here, and you don’t have a fucking weapon, then you’re fucking using mine.”
Michael’s bow was, technically, too small for Lee, but it was a horse bow, so even though Michael used it almost like a longbow because of his height, Lee could still use it as a short bow. It wasn’t his usual bow style, but he could still do it – and Michael was right. He did need a weapon.
Michael was also incredibly protective of his bow, normally. For him to offer it meant a lot.
“I’ll look after it,” Lee promised. “Thank you.”
“Thank me by staying alive this time,” Michael grumbled at him. He was clearly not happy about being forced to sit out from the war, but thankfully he seemed to accept that he couldn’t fight, at least for one night.
Lee suspected it would be a wholly different case in another twenty-four hours or so, if Kronos kept to fighting at night and pausing during the day and Michael had a chance to argue his way back out of their makeshift hospital.
He missed Will pulling off his armour until the breastplate and quiver were handed to Tris. “Take my bow, too,” he said. Unlike Lee and Michael, Will and Tris were similar enough in size and build to get away with it, just about. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but it would help more than hinder. “I still have my knife,” Will promised, before Lee could complain about leaving his siblings defenceless. “But if the fight gets back this far, it doesn’t matter how armed or not I am.”
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
As always, @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic! Previous chapters are being filled in slowly; I’ll make a note when the gap is gone!
<< Chapter 28
Listen to chapter 29 on AO3
When Chris came back in a few moments later, it was with Jake. Beckendorf’s younger brother and successor still looked red-eyed, which Lee felt guilty about – he hadn’t intended to bring back up the still-raw grief the Hephaestus cabin were going through, even though it had been an unavoidable part of alerting everyone to Silena’s lack of loyalty.
“I’m here to help with the transport,” Jake said, looking at Robyn when she turned to glance at him in curiosity. Her face relaxed slightly.
“Good,” she said, and Lee could understand her relief – Jake, like most Hephaestus kids, was built like some sort of tank and was used to carrying around heavy and sometimes delicate objects. They were some of the best for carrying wounded campers because of it. She directed him to Nathan. “No broken bones,” she reported. “Just severe flesh wounds. Don’t break anything.”
Jake nodded and knelt down next to the couch, carefully pulling Nathan into his arms. Lee’s younger brother’s head lolled with the movement, emphasising how vulnerable he seemed. Like most of their cabin, Nathan was lithe muscle rather than bulk, and against Jake’s bulging muscles it was obvious.
“We’ll do one at a time,” Chris said, and Robyn nodded.
“I’ll get Ignacy ready next,” she replied. Jake’s face tightened, and Lee understood – from Chris’ rundown earlier, Ignacy was the worst off of all the injured. Lee hadn’t yet taken a look at him himself, but Chris seemed doubtful that the son of Hephaestus was going to pull through. Jake had probably volunteered himself to help with the transport because of his younger brother, even if it was just to spend a few minutes with him.
Lee hoped Chris was wrong, but Robyn’s face was tight, too. She wouldn’t have given up on him, and nor would any of Lee’s other siblings, but they weren’t miracle workers. They’d lost too many new campers to fatal wounds suffered during their journey to camp to believe they were. Still, they were still bringing him with them. Just in case a miracle did happen.
Chris and Jake disappeared with Nathan and, still pinned by Tris, there wasn’t anything Lee could do to help Robyn as she took herself over to the unconscious son of Hephaestus and checked his bandages, making sure his chances of surviving the journey to Olympus were as high as possible.
Lee hoped he survived. Not just for Ignacy’s own sake, but for Jake and the other Hephaestus campers, who’d already lost one brother, and also for his own siblings, who never handled losing a patient well.
There was a cough from the other side of the room, hoarse and painful to hear. Lee’s head whipped back around, away from Robyn, and towards the couch where the eldest of his younger siblings was laying. Michael groaned, his fingers twitching, before he started to move, inching upwards and clearly being fought by his body for every shift he managed.
Robyn cursed and ran over to him, gripping his shoulders. “Stay still!” she snapped at him.
Lee made the executive decision that it was time for him to get up, and nudged Tris. His younger brother looked up at him with wide eyes, but shifted, giving Lee enough room to stagger to his feet and across the room until he was standing next to Robyn, adding his hands to the careful restraints to stop Michael puncturing his own lung with a broken rib as he moved.
“What the fuck hit me?” his brother mumbled, brown eyes bleary but gaining a little more focus with every blink. “Fucking-”
“Kronos,” Lee said bluntly, and Michael stilled. Robyn met his eyes and Lee gestured for her to go back to Ignacy – he could handle Michael.
Even injured, he could handle Michael.
“Kronos hit you. Hard," he continued as their sister disappeared back behind him, to their other patient – the one that was going to be much better behaved.
Michael cursed. “ Bastard.”
“Yeah,” Lee said, in full agreement. “Your ribcage is so many fragments of bone floating around loosely in your chest right now, so don’t move unless you want round two of your lungs turning into pincushions.”
Michael obviously wasn’t with it enough to understand exactly what he’d said, but one hand tried to float towards his chest until Lee caught it in one of his, so clearly at least some part of him was aware that his chest was hurt. He was waking up steadily, though, and with one last blink his eyes cleared enough to widen.
“Lee?”
His name was thin and full of hope. Lee smiled at him, and gripped his hand.
“I’m here,” he promised. “I’m here, Michael.”
His brother let out another string of expletives that Lee was pretty sure weren’t actually aimed at him. If he had to guess, it had something to do with the small, aborted movement the younger demigod had just tried to do and discovered the hard way was a bad idea.
“Don’t move,” Lee warned him, and Michael groaned again.
“Fucking Kronos,” he grumbled, so either he’d heard Lee’s earlier explanation, or he remembered what had happened. Neither of those things were technically bad news. “Is he…”
“Not defeated yet,” Lee admitted. “But we’ve been in a ceasefire since dawn.” Since you fell, he didn’t say.
“Urgh,” Michael groaned again, but his eyes were clear now. “Percy got the bridge?”
Lee nodded. “No-one’s crossing that any time soon,” he assured him.
“And everyone’s okay?” Michael pressed, before he gasped a little, as though one of his rib fragments had passed too close to his lungs. “Nathan- Tris-! You said-”
“Everyone’s still alive,” Lee assured him. “Nathan hasn’t woken up yet but he should be out of danger. And Tris-”
“I’m here!” the boy in question said, popping up next to Lee and almost throwing himself on Michael, remembering at the last minute not to, to Lee’s relief.
Michael’s eyes widened, and he reached for Tris with his free hand, growling and wincing at the pain the action caused him but stubbornly refusing to give up. Tris met him halfway, clutching the offered hand between both of his.
“You’re alive,” Michael rasped, and his eyes shined a little, his voice thin and shaking. “Tris… gods. You’re alive.”
“I’m alive,” Tris nodded. “Lee’s alive. Nathan’s alive. You’re alive.” There were tears glistening down his cheeks, and Lee used his free arm to pull Tris against his side, rubbing his hand up and down his arm comfortingly.
“Thank fuck,” Michael breathed. Lee saw his hand flex inside Tris’ grip, clinging to their little brother as best he could when he could hardly move. “Where’s Nathan?”
“Being moved to Olympus,” Lee said. “The strategy’s changed. Injured and our cabin behind the lines, in Olympus. Everyone else is front line.”
“Not trying to hold the fucking city now?” Michael asked, and he sounded somewhere between smug and irritated. “Fucking bridges and boats.”
“I called Clarisse,” Lee admitted, and felt Michael tense. “I don’t know what went on between you two and right now, it doesn’t matter. The Ares cabin is coming. Clarisse came on ahead. She had some things to say about the strategy.”
Tension drained out of Michael’s body, leaving him utterly boneless. It looked a lot like relief. “Fucking bitch,” he muttered. “’Course she came when you called.”
Lee decided against mentioning that Clarisse hadn’t shown any signs of coming until he’d said that Michael had been taken down. He didn’t think that would help anything.
“Lee’s awesome,” Tris said, and the corner of Michael’s mouth twitched.
“Yeah,” he agreed, before muttering, “always cleans up my screw-ups.”
Lee frowned. “Michael-”
“I’ve been a shit head counsellor,” Michael mumbled, closing his eyes. “Fucking- How did you do it, Lee?”
“You haven’t,” Lee said, confidently because he might not have been there to see him, but because he knew Michael. There was no way Michael was anything other than brilliant at it. Maybe he’d made a few mistakes – once again, Clarisse sprang to mind – but mistakes were normal.
“You haven’t been here,” Michael protested, and the reminder stung even though Lee knew Michael didn’t mean it like that. “I- fuck. I kept fucking up- ”
“Kayla adores you,” Lee said, cutting off his brother’s self-rumination. “It’s been a real fight getting her to leave your side for anything since you went down. She basically told me to get lost when I tried to persuade her, because I’m ‘not her head counsellor’. That’s not the sign of a terrible leader, Michael.”
“She doesn’t know any better,” Michael muttered. “If you-”
“That girl would’ve attached herself to you even if Lee was around when she showed up!” Robyn called over. “Stop saying stupid shit; you kept us together, Michael. This last year has been utter crap but your leadership wasn’t.”
Michael’s face twisted into something unconvinced, but then Tris buried his face in his stomach, far enough from the shattered ribcage that Lee didn’t stop him.
“You felt safe,” Tris mumbled. “After the battle. After we thought Lee-” he broke off with a hiccup, and Lee swallowed. He’d forgotten that Tris had spent most of that summer under Michael’s leadership, too.
Michael faltered. His hand was still trapped in between Tris’ and he clearly wasn’t ready to let go of Lee’s – and Lee wasn’t ready to let go of Michael just yet, either – but he tilted his head as much as he could to look at the dark mop of hair on his stomach.
“I’m not safe,” he said hoarsely, and Robyn snorted.
“Bullshit,” she said. “You know who doesn’t have a single fucking scratch on them so far? Even with Kronos and the Minotaur and the hellhounds and all the rest of that fucking army that came straight for us? The kids.”
Lee hadn’t particularly noticed, too distracted by the dramatic injuries of Michael and Nathan, but while most of his siblings did sport some sort of bandaging or scratches that had been deemed shallow enough to not be worth using up limited supplies, Robyn was right – Austin and Kayla, who Michael had kept so far back they probably hadn’t seen any close combat at all, had been uninjured.
“Kayla and Austin are absolutely fine right now,” she continued ruthlessly, “physically, anyway. War’s a bitch and all that. And the rest of us are still alive and walking despite that fucking titan throwing around shockwaves like confetti because you made sure of it. Even if you got yourself fucked up in the process, so you only get half points for that because you were supposed to keep yourself safe, too, you asshole.”
“She’s right,” Lee said. “If nothing else, Michael, while I was gone, I knew the cabin was in good hands. You might be a bit prickly still-”
“A bit ?” Robyn muttered, almost out of earshot, and Lee suppressed a smile because she might think Michael’s attitude was bad now, despite the praise she’d just heaped on him, but she hadn’t seen Michael as a kid. Ten year old Michael had been an actual nightmare; he’d mellowed and grown up and learnt to trust so much since first arriving at camp and Lee was always so, so proud of him for it.
“-but you’ve always cared, and that’s how you be a head counsellor, Michael. You care.”
And that hurt, because Luke had cared. Silena cared. But their care had taken them the wrong way.
Oh gods, Michael didn’t know about Silena yet.
“And it takes practice,” he continued. “It’s not easy. But they’re worth trying for, anyway.”
Michael closed his eyes, as though that would stop Lee from seeing that he was starting to cry. Lee let him have the privacy. “Yeah.”
A small hand wrapped around Lee’s waist, and he looked down to see Tris now clinging to both of them. “Love you,” their little brother said. “Both of you.”
There wasn’t a single trace of a lie.
They sat in silence for a little while, Tris still using Michael as a pillow and possibly falling a little bit asleep again, and Lee content to let his younger brother process at his own pace. Jake and Chris returned and then left again with Ignacy, then Robyn made her way over to them.
“You’re next,” she told Michael. “And you don’t get to say anything about your regenerative bullshit, you’re not walking.”
“My legs are fine,” Michael complained.
“And your ribs are shot to hell,” she countered. “Lee’s the only reason your lungs aren’t still playing pincushion and you’re going to fucking respect that by not undoing his hard work.”
“What fucking happened, anyway?” Michael asked. “The bridge wasn’t breaking near me.”
Lee sighed. “You’ve been on Kronos’ hitlist since stealing the chariot,” he said. “Or at least, some of his lieutenants’. He promised them a hit on you. I don’t know if that’s why, or if you did something else to anger him, too, but he went straight for you when the bridge broke. Redirected the debris and accelerated it. You didn’t stand a chance, Michael.”
“Fuck,” Michael laughed weakly. “Personal attention from a fucking titan. Great.”
“Yeah.” Lee could relate to that one a little too well, and Tris proved he wasn’t asleep by squeezing him more tightly. “It sucks.”
That got Michael’s attention again, and dark brown eyes looked him over, settling on the bandages around his wrists. “Luke fucking told him?”
How Michael had made that leap of logic, Lee wasn’t entirely certain, but he did have more puzzle pieces than anyone else in camp had.
Michael’s brow furrowed. “Unless you’ve got anything else you haven’t told me, it’s the only thing that makes you stand out,” he said, clearly reading Lee’s confusion. “And if there was a fucking fake body, it was planned.”
He had a point.
“Sort of,” Lee agreed. “He found out from Luke, yeah.”
Michael growled. “I am going to fucking murder that bastard,” he promised, the same dark tone he’d used when he’d promised the same thing, years ago in the dead of night as Lee had sobbed into his shoulder, the betrayal raw.
“You’re going to have to get in line for that one, Michael,” Robyn told him. “I don’t care if you called dibs first, you’re going to be at the back with the other injured.”
“Damn fucking right I called dibs first,” Michael snapped back, but echoed their usual, playful snapping, and Lee was glad about it. “You can’t stop me.”
“You’re going to be under Will’s part of the field hospital, not mine,” she retorted. “You think you’re escaping Will?”
That stopped Michael in his tracks, and he growled again. Robyn was right and they all knew it – under Robyn, he’d snap back and push his way back onto the battlefield anyway. Under Will? He wouldn’t do that to Will. “Bitch,” he muttered, but it didn’t have too much heat in it.
Then he looked back at Lee, and his face was serious again. “There’s a fucking spy,” he said. “You know?”
“Silena,” Tris said while Lee was still following the change in topic, and Michael cursed.
Lee collected himself again, before anyone could mention Beckendorf again. “The head counsellors know,” he assured Michael. “Drew’s taken over their cabin.”
He made a complicated face at that, and in a different situation, Lee would’ve laughed. Drew and Michael’s relationship was an entertaining one, from the outside. They sniped at each other, but Lee was pretty sure there was the strains of a friendship lurking beneath the surface, if either of them would just stop to acknowledge it.
Michael clearly decided against saying anything on the topic. “And Silena?” he asked.
“Apparently went to fetch the Ares cabin while Clarisse was on her way here,” Lee said. “They called Clarisse about it and got debriefed. Whether or not Silena comes back with them will depend on what her reason for fetching them was. They’re on high alert.”
“Why can’t things be fucking simple,” Michael muttered. “So we may or may not have a spy coming back into our ranks?”
“Drew’s going to deal with her if she comes back,” Lee said. “And she’s fuming.”
“They can have the fucking bitchfight away from me,” Michael grumbled. “Where are you taking me, anyway?”
“Olympus,” Robyn said promptly. “You and Nathan both. Neither of you are fit to fight and we’re not letting you try. You’re not shooting a bow with confetti ribs.”
“But-” Michael protested, and Lee shook his head.
“You’ll be with Will,” he said. “Make sure he doesn’t get overworked, or overwork himself.”
Will might be enough of a threat to keep Michael in line, but it worked both ways, and Michael was sharp enough to recognise that.
“You could keep him in line, too,” he grumbled at Lee, but Lee shook his head.
“I’m ‘walking wounded’,” he said. “I can still fight.”
Robyn’s head snapped around to him. “You what?” she demanded. “Lee, you are barely walking-”
“And I really, really owe Kronos and his army a few arrows in the face,” Lee added. “I’m done running and cowering.”
“He hurt you,” Tris said, not for the first time, but there was a warning in there, their shared knowledge that Kronos didn’t need to use weapons to hurt Lee, when he had words.
“I know,” Lee said, and it was an acknowledgement, but, “that’s why I need to do this.”
He was still fit to fight. And for the first time in over a year, he could.
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
As always, @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic!
There is a tissue warning for this chapter, per stereden's insistence. I'd say I'm sorry, but...
<< Chapter 13
Listen to chapter 14 on AO3
Lee didn’t tell Tris that Kronos had lied. Maybe it was cruel, but he couldn’t let Tris think that it was because of him, that Lee hadn’t warned Silena because if he had, Tris would’ve died.
Even if that was the truth.
Tris didn’t need the guilt from that; it hadn’t been his decision, it had been Lee’s choice to make and it was one he would take the responsibility for, if it came down to it. If they didn’t manage to escape whatever trap Kronos was going to set.
Kronos had grilled him on Silena’s lies, the same as usual, while Alabaster continued to hold Tris at knife point, so by the time the two of them had been left alone again, Tris throwing himself at Lee for more of their pale imitations of hugs, Lee’s tears had dried.
His brother hadn’t let go of him until their next visitor, one carrying food and fresh torches to replace the ones that had almost burnt themselves out.
The fallout of Silena’s lies happened gradually.
It wasn’t usual for Kronos to meet with his demigods in front of Lee. Sometimes he did, as a test of their loyalty, but for the most part Kronos seemed to prefer saving his truth sensing abilities for his spies.
Lee hadn’t seen Reuben in a long time, and had hoped that meant he’d been stationed elsewhere, so he didn’t have to deal with the Roman demigod glowering at him and still reminding him of Marcus, the kid Lee had never met but mourned regardless. He was not happy when Kronos led him into his cell, and the way he tensed must have alerted Tris, who was curled up next to him, because his younger brother raised his head and watched the new arrival cautiously.
Reuben sneered at both of them, but didn’t say anything. His shoulder was bandaged, blood spotting through the fabric, and his arm was stuck in a sling. Lee realised then that he must have been involved in one of the raids one of the spies had reported, and hoped none of the campers, from either camp, had been killed.
“My flying chariot,” Kronos said, his voice level but frozen cold, dangerous. “What happened?”
Reuben sent Lee another filthy look before focusing on the titan, straightening his spine. “As expected, we were attacked yesterday,” he reported. “There were almost twice the numbers we had been told about – the graecus spawn of Mars were led by that bitch with an electric spear.” He spat, carefully away from Kronos but not so carefully away from Lee and Tris. “We were prepared for them and drove them back, only for the fucking archers to ambush us from behind.”
Lee and Tris both froze, and Silena’s lie suddenly made sense. It was the Apollo cabin, with the Ares cabin, always was going to be, but Silena had kept them quiet as what, some sort of apology to Lee? She was willing to throw Clarisse into the lion’s den but decided to protect the Apollo cabin?
While Lee couldn’t say he was mad that his siblings had been given an advantage and a greater chance of survival, he was still mad that she was spying at all, and that, worse, she was picking and choosing who to endanger. Silena and Clarisse were supposed to be friends.
Then again, Silena was supposed to be his friend, too. So much for that.
The look Kronos sent Lee told him that the titan, too, had realised the omission and why. Disconcertingly, a smirk crossed his face, which Lee didn’t like at all. He expected anger, not satisfaction.
“And my chariot?”
“The fucking archers,” Reuben repeated. “Their bastard leader snuck on while the Mars spawn led a second frontal assault, and started raining arrows down on us.”
He threw something down on the ground, broken and blood-stained, but it wasn’t the sharp point of the arrow that caught Lee’s attention, but the fletching. Feathered vanes, two red and one gold.
Lee would know Michael’s arrows anywhere.
“When I get my hands on that fucker…” Reuben snarled, and Lee tensed, even though he knew he couldn’t do anything. Listening to his younger brother get threatened did not sit well with him at all.
“If he continues to be a presence on the gods’ side of the war, I am sure you will get an opportunity,” Kronos said mildly, and Lee hated that it was true. He also hated that Michael was on Kronos’ radar, but he knew his younger brother well enough to know that even if he wasn’t head counsellor, if Lee was still in camp and in charge, Michael would still be causing enough of a nuisance for Kronos to get on his radar.
Michael had a talent for that. Just ask Clarisse.
The rest of Reuben’s report was much the same; a recounting of how Michael had turned their own flying chariot into a weapon against them as the other archers rained arrows into them and the Ares campers destroyed the convoy.
They hadn’t killed anyone, though. Injuries had happened – on both sides, Reuben made sure to specify, seeming entirely too happy about hurting Lee’s siblings and friends – and some of them seemed to be nasty, but neither side had lost any demigods.
Monsters had been a different case, but Lee didn’t mind that, not when monsters were the constant threat. He still wasn’t sure how the defected demigods were managing to work with them without living in fear of being attacked.
Neither Reuben nor Kronos stayed in the room after the report was finished; Reuben hadn’t lied, and Kronos clearly saw no reason to believe he had. Sadly, while Reuben stalked out of the room without picking up Michael’s arrow, Kronos wasn’t so unobservant. He hadn’t left Lee with anything that could possibly be a weapon for a year, and had yet to slip up. He scooped it up off of the floor, admiring the fletching for a moment, before walking out of the room.
The door slammed shut and the bolt slid into place.
Tris curled up against Lee’s side again. “Michael’s in danger,” he mumbled.
“He was already in danger,” Lee admitted. “We’ve all been in danger since Luke stole the lightning bolt. Michael’s smart enough not to take stupid risks.” There were other reasons why he might, but Lee wasn’t going to dwell on those. He certainly wasn’t going to let Tris dwell on them.
His brother mumbled something indistinctly, shuffling in place a little bit. Then, “he showed them,” he muttered, loud enough for Lee to hear him. “Kronos and his followers. They underestimated him and he made them pay.”
Lee had to smile at least a little bit at that, even if he was still worried that Michael was painting too big a target on himself to be able to keep pulling the underestimation off. “Yeah, he did,” he still said, because he was still a little proud of him for it.
The second fallout of Silena’s lies came a few meals and bathroom visits later.
Alabaster threw the door open and stalked in, not giving either of them so much as a greeting before grabbing hold of Tris, prying him away from Lee, and hauling him bodily out of the room as the younger boy fought to get free, screaming when he realised he couldn’t. Lee’s wrists took another battering as he tried to lunge forwards, to get to his little brother, only to be pulled up short by the restraints the same way he always was.
“Tris!” he shouted. “Tris! ”
“Lee! ” Tris screamed back, but he was no match for the son of Hecate and was all but carried away. Alabaster slammed the door shut behind them, trapping Lee in his room.
It was the first time he’d been left alone in the room with the door shut.
He hated it.
Tris’ screaming quickly faded away, once the door was shut, and no amount of struggling got Lee free from the cuffs. No amount of shouting or screaming got any response, either, and Lee was left staring helplessly at the closed door, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
The last time Tris was torn away from him, it was for Michael’s report meeting, and he’d been returned quickly afterwards. Kronos had been there, though. The titan’s absence this time felt like a lack.
He knew that Kronos likely wasn’t around. He’d been spending more time on the Princess Andromeda – Lee’s spine hadn’t so much as tingled when the titan had said it, so it was true – waiting for the reported sabotage attack. It was to give the camp’s spies the illusion that the boat really was Kronos’ primary base, but Lee hadn’t really cared as long as it kept the titan far, far away from him and Tris.
Now, he did care, because he didn’t know why Tris had been taken, and if they hurt him… Lee didn’t know why they would, when neither of them had done anything to provoke Tris being hurt, but the look in Reuben’s eyes when he’d threatened Michael, the glowers some of the other demigods had sent him when they saw him…
He was crying again, terrified of what was happening to his little brother and hating his helplessness. Hating, hating, hating it.
When the door opened again, the bolt sliding back with a grating squeal, his heart jumped up into his throat. Hope, that Tris was coming back. Fear, that Tris was hurt.
Kronos’ golden eyes were the first thing he saw. The second was the large, dark figure next to him. Not Tris.
Then Kronos shoved hard and the other figure stumbled in, crashing to the floor the same way Tris had, that first time Alabaster had thrown him in. The titan didn’t even bother entering the room, shutting the door without a word and trapping Lee and his new companion in together.
Lee did not like the implications. Where was Tris?
And who had just been locked in with him?
The large figure laid down, still on the floor for several long moments, before rolling over with a groan. Their hands were tightly secured behind their back, and the torches were bright enough that Lee could see that they were mutilated, fingers crushed.
The figure groaned again, awkwardly pulling themselves up onto their knees, and Lee’s heart sank.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy to see Beckendorf, really. The son of Hephaestus was a good guy, friendly with everyone, and Lee couldn’t see him agreeing to be mutilated for a deception. It was just that they were both prisoners, now, and Kronos’ lie to Silena was ringing in his ears, the promise that he would spare the second demigod infiltrator that had sounded so sincere, if Lee hadn’t known differently.
Beckendorf made sense. Silena loved him; Lee could believe her lying to try desperately to keep him safe, even if it meant throwing Percy and other key demigods in the war effort in front of the manticore. Beckendorf made a painful amount of sense, and Lee hoped he could find a way out, somehow.
Somehow.
Beckendorf groaned again, but it was quieter, and in the torchlight, his dark eyes flickered amber. Lee suspected he had a concussion – he didn’t look overly aware of his surroundings, even if he was still able to move. That didn’t bode so well for escaping.
Those dark eyes settled on Lee, and widened.
“Lee?” he rasped, shuffling closer on his knees. He wavered from side to side, but managed to close the distance between them in short order. “Lee, is that you?”
Lee wasn’t a short guy. He was considerably taller than Tris – understandable, given that Tris still had a growth spurt or two left to hit – and a similar height to Luke. Most of the demigods working for Kronos were shorter than Kronos-as-Luke, which meant that even though he was usually trapped sitting down, Lee still didn’t feel short.
Beckendorf was a big guy. Even on his knees, injured and concussed, Lee felt dwarfed next to him. He knew that several new kids tended to find Beckendorf intimidating, with his build, even though he was actually one of the sweetest temperaments in camp. To Lee, it was almost a comfort, to be in his shadow again.
“Yeah,” he said, raising his head to meet his friend’s eyes. Beckendorf only held his gaze for a moment, before he was looking at the restraints, thick cuffs of metal that Lee had long since learned to hate.
“How long have you been here?” the other demigod asked him, wavering in place again and bracing his shoulder against the wall to stay upright. “You look awful.” He sounded worried, but Lee was far more worried about him.
“You need to worry about yourself,” he said. “You’ve got to get out of here, Beckendorf.”
Despite the concussion, Beckendorf’s eyes were determined. “You need to get out of here,” he said.
“I can’t,” Lee admitted, even though he really, really wanted to. “They’ve got Tris. If I misbehave…” he broke off in a choked-up sob. “Get out, Beckendorf,” he said. “They don’t want me dead. I’ve survived this long. I can survive a bit longer. You… they’re going to kill you.”
Beckendorf let out a sigh that sounded fatally amused. “I told Percy the same thing,” he murmured. “To run and leave me. I hope he got out in time.” He steeled himself, pulling himself up using his shoulder against the wall. “If I manage it, I’ll come back for you, Lee,” he promised. “You and Tris.” Lee managed a thin smile.
“I’d appreciate it.”
Watching him stagger, with his ruined hands clamped behind his back and a thick, heavy metal door bolted from the outside between him and freedom, Lee knew Beckendorf’s odds of actually escaping were slim to none.
Still, he tried to send out a prayer, to Apollo, to Hephaestus. Please, Dad, Lord Hephaestus. Get him out. Apollo hadn’t responded to any of his prayers since he’d arrived, so Lee was pretty certain that Kronos was somehow blocking them, but he still had to try.
Beckendorf had scarcely taken two stumbling steps towards the door when it flew open, Kronos breezing in. He was followed by Ethan, who looked a little bit singed and disquiet, and Alabaster, who mimicked Kronos’ sweeping walk. Like Ethan, he showed signs of getting a little too close to something that went boom.
Kronos looked completely untouched.
He was also carrying a massive scythe, and Lee had heard about Backbiter in passing, both back in camp when Percy had garbled an explanation of where Luke had gone, and also from some of Kronos’ demigods since his capture.
A single sharp gesture had the two demigods grabbing onto Beckendorf, and the concussion seemed to delay his reactions just a split second too long. When he went to fight back, his muscular bulk a weapon even when he didn’t have the use of his arms, Alabaster whacked him in the back of the head with the hilt of Ethan’s sword.
Beckendorf crumpled to the ground, and Lee’s stomach started climbing up his throat, because he knew Kronos had no plans to let Beckendorf live, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he might kill him right there, in front of him.
Suddenly, there was a part of him that was glad Tris was elsewhere, a stroke of luck to spare the preteen from seeing someone else killed in front of him.
Neither Ethan nor Alabaster were particularly bulky; Ethan was a lithe swordsman, and Lee had yet to work out what Alabaster’s weapon of choice was, although he was clearly talented with magic. Between the two of them they just about got Beckendorf dragged up onto his knees again. Dazed from the blow to the back of his head, which had probably given him another concussion on top of the first one, Beckendorf didn’t even fight back.
The silver bracelet dropped to the floor, and Silena appeared. She looked nervous, and her eyes widened as she took in the sight broadcast towards her.
“Charlie?” she whispered. “Charlie? ”
Beckendorf stirred. Lee couldn’t see his face, but he saw the confused tilt of his head. “Silena? Silena… Lee. Silena, you have to… Lee… Tris… Kronos has them… Save them. ”
He didn’t seem to care that Kronos was in front of him. He didn’t seem to realise why he could see Silena, either, and Lee started to sob. Maybe it was a blessing that Beckendorf was concussed enough to not realise she was a spy, that she was the one that had betrayed him.
“It’s okay, Charlie,” Silena said, softly, but there were tears running down her face, and there was the awkwardness of uncertainty in her voice. “You’re safe, now. You’re all safe. And once this is over-”
Kronos stepped closer, forcing himself into the centre of attention. “I hate to break up this touching conversation,” he said, “but I have one small correction to make.”
The scythe whistled through the air, coming to a halt resting next to Beckendorf’s neck. Ethan and Alabaster both made themselves short, crouching down underneath the trajectory of the swing.
Silena gasped, and her eyes filled with horror. “My Lord-”
“You lied to me, Silena,” he said. “Actions have consequences, you stupid girl. I have been generous, sparing the lives of the campers because they are only children who do not understand, yet this is how you repay me?”
“No, no-” Her hands came up to her mouth in horror. For the first time in years, her tears started to make a mess of her make-up. “No, my Lord, you said- you said you’d spare-”
“So I did,” Kronos agreed. “But tell her, Lee. You knew, after all.”
She blinked, as though she hadn’t even noticed Lee was there. Lee had been quite content to not be noticed. “Lee?”
“Yes, Lee,” Kronos mimicked when he didn’t respond immediately. “Tell her.”
There was a threat in the tone, a promise that if he didn’t, there would be a price to pay, and Lee couldn’t risk Tris. He couldn’t.
He raised his head, and she recoiled, probably at his tear-stained face and what it meant.
Lee didn’t take any pleasure from what was effectively an I told you so. “He lied,” he rasped hoarsely. “He lied and he’s got Tris and I couldn’t tell you.” It was a warning far too late to be of any good.
Kronos smirked, a far darker look than Luke would have ever pulled. “From the mouth of our own lie detector,” he said. “Actions have consequences, Silena. Let this be a warning. The next time you lie to me, I’ll burn your entire camp to the ground.” He pulled the scythe back. “Any last words for your betrayed love?”
“No, no, no,” Silena sobbed. “Charlie I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. No, please, don’t, my Lord, please-”
“Silena,” Beckendorf mumbled, and she fell silent. “Silena, I love you.” He raised his head and looked straight at her. “Save them.”
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
RL has delayed this week’s podfic as well, unfortunately. I’ll update this and the previous affected chapters when they’re out!
<< Chapter 22
Clarisse recoiled as though she'd been struck, and behind her, Chris put his hand on her shoulder, bracing her. Tris squeezed Lee's hand, and the silence behind him, where Robyn and Kayla had still been fussing over their siblings, was heavy.
"Silena?" Clarisse demanded, and she sounded furious. Lee braced himself for the accusations, because Silena was Clarisse's friend, the two of them had always been close, much to the surprise of most of the camp, who couldn't work out where their friendship came from, the beautiful horse girl and the rough and ready warrior, as different as chalk and cheese. Of course Clarisse wouldn't just accept Silena had betrayed her.
Tris bundled himself more closely against Lee's side, changing his one-handed grip to a two-handed cling, and Lee glanced down at him to see him glaring at Clarisse, daring her to call Lee a liar. The glare of a skinny twelve year old was never going to affect Clarisse, though, and when Lee looked back at her, she was barely giving Tris a glance at all. Her eyes were locked on him.
"If Silena is the spy, what the fuck happened to Beckendorf?" she demanded, and Lee couldn't help the flinch, remembering the flash of a falling scythe, the blood splattering onto his feet, Silena's scream-
"Lee?" Tris asked, his voice small, and oh gods, Tris hadn't been there – thank the gods, because Lee couldn't handle his little brother seeing that – and that meant he didn't know.
A blink and Clarisse was in his face, her spear shoved in Chris' hand behind her. "With me," she said, and when Tris started to protest, she turned a fierce look on him. "Just Lee," she said, and Tris didn't want to let go, but Lee didn't want Tris to hear the rest so he gently extracted his hand, to quiet sobs.
Robyn appeared in his periphery, taking Tris and guiding him away, despite the boy's protests.
Lee didn't fight as Clarisse led him away from the rest, past still-burning vehicles that looked far less dramatic in the daylight, until they were out of earshot and almost out of sight of the other demigods.
"Talk," she ordered.
He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling more tears welling up, and reached blindly for the railings, gripping onto them tightly. He didn't look at Clarisse. He couldn't.
"She lied to Kronos," he said, and it was a battle to keep his voice steady. "Twice. Three times. There was- it was a coach, of monsters. She said she didn't know which reinforcements were going to be targeted."
"That was Beckendorf," Clarisse said, her voice low. "Him and the Stolls."
Lee had suspected as much. He nodded. "Kronos was furious," he said, and he was shaking a little. "She didn't- she thought she'd got away with it. She did it again. Said there would be an ambush. Just your cabin. It wasn't. He didn't like that, either. Reuben wanted Michael dead. He shot him."
"Reuben?"
"Demigod," Lee said. "Never ours. One of the leaders. Don't know where he was deployed."
It was getting harder to breathe. He tightened his grip on the railing, feeling the cool metal biting into his skin.
"Then it was the boat," he said, "but that lie didn't- Kronos had already decided. He told Silena whoever went with Percy- He'd spare them. He lied, and I couldn't-"
"Kronos had Tris by then," Clarisse said, and it wasn't a question. Lee wasn't quite sure how she'd made the connection, but it meant he didn't have to say it, so he didn't question it.
"Yeah," he said, with a sob. "Tris wasn't there, when-" He swallowed. "They took Tris away, before they brought Beckendorf-" his voice broke on the name "-in. He didn't see. Silena did. Kronos-" Lee tried to take another breath but it was getting harder. Clarisse didn't stop him, though, didn't interrupt him with mercies like that's enough, so he pushed on. "He told her. If she lied again- He'd kill everyone."
Silence hung between them, or what could have been silence, if Lee's breathing wasn't so loud, if he wasn't crying.
Then a solid, warm hand rested on his shoulder, grip firm but not squeezing. Supportive, not restraining.
"Stupid, stupid girl," Clarisse snarled. She didn't bring up anything else Lee had said, and Lee was grateful for it, because he didn't want to delve deeper into any of it. "Naïve, to think Kronos wouldn't have ways of making you give her up when you didn't do it willingly." Her hand flexed slightly. "You're a shit liar. Everyone knows that. Luke knew that. Silena should have bloody remembered it would only take the right damn question out of Kronos and he'd have you read like a book."
Lee crumpled. Clarisse was right, he knew she was right, but it still hurt to hear it. Hurt, but also helped a little, because in her own way, she was saying that it wasn't his fault. That he wasn't to blame – that she still trusted him.
The daughter of Ares didn't do hugs, but the grip on his shoulder stayed, and she crouched down in front of him, staying at eye level even when Lee found himself kneeling on the asphalt, trying to remember how to breathe. The touch was grounding, and he focused on it, trying to get his breathing back under a mental count. It was hard, but the war wasn't over yet and Lee forced himself back under control.
He could have the full breakdown later, once Kronos was back in Tartarus and he knew all his siblings were going to survive the war.
"You said I'm needed here," Clarisse said, once his breathing was somewhat even again. "What do you know, Lee?"
He wiped his eyes with his forearm and took a deep breath, looking at her. "About whatever is going on between you and my siblings? Just about nothing. About this battle? Kronos knows your cabin isn't here, and it's no secret that cabin five is our best warriors. He didn't keep me in the loop on everything, but I don't think he's expecting you."
"You need fresh reinforcements," Clarisse summarised. "And you called me, not anyone officially in charge here." She looked around at the carnage. "What do you know of the situation? Why was there a battle here? Olympus is still further in."
Lee forced himself to think back to Silena's last report, the one where every word had been a truth. "One cabin per bridge or tunnel," he said. "The Hermes cabin split across two, and the Hunters are here, too. Pollux is with the Demeter cabin."
Clarisse looked at him incredulously. "Are they trying to hold the whole fucking city? " she demanded. "Who the fuck cares about Manhattan? They don't have the numbers for that. They barely have the numbers to just hold the block around the Empire State Building! What the fuck was Wise Girl thinking?"
Lee shrugged. "That was the report to Kronos," he said. "Tris and I didn't get out until after he left."
Clarisse scowled. "I wondered why Michael was down when he shouldn't have been on the fucking front lines at all," she said. "But he fucking was, wasn't he? Front lines between Kronos and the rest of your cabin."
Lee's mouth twisted into something he couldn't even identify. "Yeah."
"I saw Nathan was down, too," she added. "That's the camp's two best archers – Kayla's not there yet, she's too new, but it won't take her long – out for the rest of the war, and it's only been one fucking night. Kronos came here?"
He nodded. "Baited Percy with the Minotaur, then came himself. Annabeth thinks he-"
"-was hitting the fucking healers," Clarisse interrupted. "Of course he was."
It's what I would've done, if I was him, Lee heard.
"Any fatalities?" she asked, and Lee shook his head.
"Michael and Nathan are the worst," he said. "Everyone else is still fit to keep fighting, if they have to." He hated that it would even be necessary , but Clarisse was right. There would be more fighting, before the war was over.
"You and Tris aren't," she rebuked. "I get you probably haven't looked at yourself in a fucking mirror, but you're dead on your feet. You don't even have weapons, or armour. Or even fucking shoes." She glared at his feet like they'd personally offended her. "You're getting back behind the fucking front line and staying there."
"I-"
"If I have my way," she started, in a tone that said she was going to have her way and no-one was going to be able to stop her, "you're all sitting back. We have archers. I have archers, the other cabins have archers, even if they're not as good as yours. We don't have healers, and if Kronos is-"
She was interrupted by the shimmering of an Iris Message opening up in front of her, and snapped her head towards it.
It was Ellis, one of her brothers.
"What?" she demanded. "And where's Sherman?" Sherman would be in charge without her there, Lee realised. It would make sense for Sherman to call. But Ellis?
"Silena's here," Ellis said, and his voice was strangely hushed, as though he was trying not to be overheard. "She's trying to persuade us to come and fight. Sherman's distracting her – your orders? Are we coming?"
He was looking at his older sister, but Lee didn't miss the glances that came his way.
Clarisse growled. "Don't trust her," she said. "She's the fucking spy."
Ellis' face paled. "Silena is?"
Clarisse set her jaw, and Lee recognised her thinking face, because strategy wasn't limited to the Athena cabin, and Clarisse had a good head for it, too. It was a necessity, in the leader of a war cabin, even if they usually only had to deploy it in Capture the Flag, rather than in real war.
"Go along with her," she said. "Or pretend to. Get your asses to Manhattan. They need reinforcements." She turned to Lee. "Where's the command centre?"
"Last I heard, Plaza Hotel," Lee said. "That's where Annabeth and the rest of my siblings are, at least."
She nodded sharply and turned back to Ellis. "You hear that? I want your asses at Plaza Hotel, or Olympus if that's not friendly territory by the time you arrive. If Silena tries to take you anywhere else, ignore her. Take her down if you have to."
"There's a ceasefire until tonight," Lee added, dredging out the other information he'd heard. "I don't know exactly what constitutes as 'tonight', or where Kronos is in the meantime."
Clarisse nodded again. "Get here before nightfall if you can," she said. "If you can't, be prepared to fight the fuck through; they don't need a pincer, they need a fucking front line. Don't let Silena stop you."
Lee felt bad for Ellis – he was one of the sharper Ares kids, one that could have been mistaken for Athena, by people who thought that intelligence was an Athena trait and never an Ares trait, and that was no doubt why Sherman had chosen him to call Clarisse, but he was young, too, around Will's age. This wasn't the sort of bad news he should be put in the position to carry. Still, he was an Ares kid, too, and the Ares cabin were all good at fighting.
He nodded. "Understood," he said. "Will you be there?"
"I'll be there," Clarisse said, and it sounded as much a threat as a promise. "Sherman stays in charge unless you deem him compromised, in which case give it to Louisa, until you make contact with me. Then command is mine. And one more thing – if she hasn't been told already, don't tell her I'm already here. And don't mention Lee."
Ellis gave her a quick salute, although his eyes flickered over to Lee again, curious and assessing. "Understood," he repeated. "We'll see you there." At a gesture from him, the IM faded away.
Clarisse turned back to Lee, thunder on her face. "She's dragging my cabin into something," she said, and she wasn't happy about it. "What are the chances she's doing it for Kronos?"
Lee wanted to think she wouldn't do that, but…
"If Kronos wanted her to, she would," he said. "After-" he choked. "After Beckendorf, she's cowed. But, she swore she's trying to protect everyone, and that wasn't a lie either."
"So either she's his puppet, or she's finally grown a fucking spine because she's realised Kronos isn't going to spare anyone she asks," Clarisse summarised. "And we have no way of knowing." Her voice was flat, and unimpressed. "Ellis will have everyone on alert."
"Your cabin are strong, and smarter than they get credit for," Lee said. "Silena won't catch them unawares."
"As long as she doesn't use that fucking charmspeak of hers," Clarisse growled. "It won't get everyone, but it might get Sherman."
"Won't get Louisa, though," Lee reminded her, needlessly. "They'll manage."
That got a snort out of her. "Louisa'll punch her in the face if she fucking tries," she said. Lee didn't doubt it for a moment. The girl would probably be searching for an excuse, once she heard Silena was spying for Kronos.
Clarisse pulled herself to her feet, and held out a hand for Lee to take. He clasped it with his own and she pulled him up, bracing him with another hand on his elbow. Lee's wrist appreciated not taking the strain.
"First things first, we're getting the rest of you to Plaza Hotel," she said. "This is too close to the front lines and you need to regroup. Why did you leave Michael and Nathan here when everyone else went?"
Lee gestured at the road carnage behind them. "Don't have any way of transporting them," he said. "It's too far to carry and stealing a car doesn't do anything when the roads are blocked."
Clarisse nodded curtly, accepting the reason and starting to walk back, to where the others were waiting. "What injuries are we talking about?"
"Flesh wounds for Nathan," Lee said. "He's lost an arm and it's not recoverable, but he's stable enough to move; they carried him up here already, on a blanket. Michael's chest got caved in. His lungs aren't punctured anymore but his ribs are still badly broken."
She clicked her tongue, irritated. "The chariot isn't big enough to take everyone at once," she said. "At a push, we could do it in two trips."
"I'm going with Nathan," Robyn said, alerting Lee to the fact they'd got back in earshot. "Tris also goes first."
"I'm going with Lee!" Tris protested.
"No, you're going first," Clarisse dismissed, looking him over. "I'd send Lee first if I thought I could make him."
She could. They both knew she could push him onto the chariot and he wouldn't be able to stop her, not in his current condition, but he appreciated that she was acting as though she couldn't, telling him that she wouldn't.
"Robyn, you, Nathan, and the kids are going with Chris," she decided, and Tris and Kayla both started making loud complaints at the order, until she rounded on them with a glare. "Not negotiable."
"You're not the boss of me!" Kayla snapped back, and before Lee could say anything, she glared at him, too, "and nor are you! Michael is my head counsellor! I'm staying with him!"
"Kayla, we don't have time for this," Robyn told her. "Their injuries mean Michael needs more space than Nathan in the chariot. The longer you argue this, the longer it'll take us to get back with everyone else, and the longer before we can get Michael set up in a proper field hospital, rather than here."
While the girls argued, Lee saw Chris slip around them and carefully pull Nathan into his arms, carrying him over to the chariot and stepping into it, setting the unconscious blond down carefully, where he wouldn't fall out once it started moving.
Seeing no reason to delay, Lee guided Tris over as well. His brother was crying again, clinging to his arms, and Lee wrapped him in a hug. "It won't be long," he said. "We'll follow on as soon as the chariot comes back."
"You should come now and let Kayla go with Michael," Tris pouted, but Lee shook his head.
"It's a big brother thing," he admitted. "Youngest first. I need you safe, Tris, so please?"
"I need you safe, too," Tris protested, but he was wavering. Lee smiled at him weakly.
"I'll be with Clarisse," he said. "I'll be safe." Tris eyed the girl over his shoulder, but even he couldn't argue that Clarisse wasn't as good a protector as Lee could ask for. His shoulders sagged.
"Be quick," he said, and hugged him again.
"We will," Lee said, and glanced up at Chris as Tris reluctantly left him and boarded the chariot. "Look after him."
"I will," the older demigod promised.
Lee walked away slowly, knowing he needed to talk to Chris at some point, but that now wasn't the time. Robyn passed him, jumping into the chariot as well and crouching next to Nathan, while a red-faced and fuming Kayla was deposited none-too-gently by Clarisse, and then grabbed by the back of her armour by Chris.
Lee winced at the sight, but the sooner the kids were away, the better, so he stepped further away, rejoined by Clarisse, as Chris single-handedly grabbed the reins and coaxed the pegasi into the air.
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
RL has delayed this week’s podfic as well, unfortunately. I’ll update this and chapter 21 when they're out!
<< Chapter 21
The sun was higher in the sky when the first of his siblings pulled back, far enough across that Lee could estimate with a certainty he'd missed that it had been somewhere between half an hour and an hour since they'd all dogpiled him.
Well, that wasn't strictly true. Kayla had floated between the hug and poking at Michael with muted desperation, and Robyn had kept peeling off to check on both their unconscious siblings, but barring those, no-one had released him for a long, long time. Long enough for his latest bout of tears to expire and the evidence dry from his face. Tris' hair was still damp, as was Lee's own, but they were both drying off at a fair speed now that the sun was in the sky and shining down on them.
Sally was the one to brandish a hair tie in his face. "Your hair's long," she said, and always had a supply wrapped around her wrist, so it was with no effort on her part, and no resistance on Lee's, that she tied his long and messy hair back into something that doubtless wasn't neat, but at least stopped hair falling in his eyes inconveniently. With everything else going on, Lee had hardly noticed it, but he certainly noticed the lack when the hair was pulled back, out of the way.
"Thanks," he said warmly, and she stole another hug, worming her way between him and a vaguely disgruntled Tris to get it. Tris seemed determined to stay glued to Lee's side, and while Lee was glad for the constant reminder that his little brother was with him, the fact that he knew it was mostly triggered by trauma hurt.
"I missed you," Sally told him, and Lee gave her an honest smile.
"I missed you, too," he said.
"So what's the plan now?" Robyn asked, squatting down next to Michael with a hand over his broken ribs. Next to her, Kayla once again had one of Michael's hands in a white-knuckled grip, and unlike Lee, she didn't seem to be completely out of tears yet, although they were far less prevalent than they had been earlier. The red rimming her eyes was just as stark, though. "Percy said something about a ceasefire until tonight, but what are we doing in the meantime?"
Lee had missed the ceasefire thing – either Percy hadn't mentioned it, or he hadn't been listening when the son of Poseidon had said it. If it had come out of Kronos' mouth, he'd certainly missed it, far more interested in saving his brother's life instead.
Still, a daytime ceasefire would help them. All of them needed rest – they'd been up all night and had to be exhausted. Will was hopefully already asleep, as long as the rest of the campers weren't overworking him.
If they were, Lee would take great delight in siccing Michael on them the moment his brother was conscious again. Michael didn't need to be uninjured to verbally tear someone apart, and wouldn't wait to be, either.
"Does anyone know where the current headquarters is?" Lee asked, and all eyes went to Joy. After Michael and Will, she held the most seniority, after all.
She shook her head. "There isn't one," she signed, the jerk of her thumb from beneath her chin harsh. "Percy spread us out across Manhattan."
So they had no idea where Will was. Great.
That hadn't been something Lee had considered when he'd let Percy take his younger brother away. They also didn't have transport to go anywhere, not that would take the thirteen of them, including two unconscious bodies that had to be transported with care. All they could do was walk, but without a target to aim for, that wouldn't do them any good.
"Someone call Annabeth," Robyn ordered. "Either she'll know, or whoever's got her phone will know. There's got to be a phone around here somewhere."
They were using cell phones to communicate? Lee had seen Percy with one, but Percy tended to be a law unto himself and could also take care of himself when monsters tracked him down. Then again, he supposed that monsters finding them was probably the least of their worries, especially with Kronos already knowing their movements – oh gods, he hadn't mentioned Silena yet.
He didn't know how.
"I'm on it!" Alice called, scrambling to her feet and running over to the nearest mortal, ransacking their pockets until she pulled out a flip phone. "What's the number, again?"
Robyn rattled it off, and with more ease than Lee usually saw with demigods, Alice punched them in, not even hesitating before finding the call button and holding it up to her ear.
Alice did live in the mortal world for most of the year. Lee supposed she'd had to learn to blend in, even if she didn't own one herself – unless she did, and just didn't bring it to camp. Lee wouldn't be overly surprised, even if the idea of his younger sister carrying around a personal monster beacon terrified him.
The conversation was quick.
"Plaza Hotel," she reported, snapping it shut and stuffing it back in its owner's pocket. "I don't know where that is."
"I do," Sam said, their resident New Yorker. Lee didn't remember whereabouts, exactly, in New York his mom lived, but the paleness of his brother's face probably had something to do with the battle being far too close to her for his comfort. "It's on the south east corner of Central Park."
Ordinarily, that wouldn't be too far to walk, but with Michael and Nathan unconscious, that became a tall order – and with the streets jammed with cars, Lee couldn't conveniently borrow one to transport them.
Maybe Clarisse would have a solution, when she arrived.
"Some of you need to head over there and keep Will company," he said. "Make sure he's not being overworked."
"I have patients here," Robyn said immediately, and Lee nodded at her, expecting nothing else. Joy raised a hand, volunteering herself, and Alice followed suit, quickly followed by Elias and Sally.
Lee turned to Sam. "Can you lead the way?" he asked, and his brother nodded. A glance at Austin and Kayla made it abundantly clear that Kayla was going nowhere without Michael, and Austin was sticking closely to her, so Lee didn't bother trying to persuade them.
"What about the rest of you?" Alice asked.
"Clarisse should be on her way here," Lee said, and immediately the cabin erupted into multiple tirades, none of them complimentary. He raised a hand for silence, and after a few moments, they unwillingly gave it to him, still simmering. "I don't know what, exactly, went down between her and Michael, but Kronos knows the Ares cabin isn't here and they're our best melee fighters. We need them."
"Tell that to Clarisse," Alice muttered darkly. "Stupid bitch."
"I intend to," Lee said. He gave the rest of his siblings a look. "Anyone who thinks they can't be civil when she turns up, go with Sam and the others to the Plaza Hotel. I need a civil conversation with her."
"I'm staying," Tris piped up stubbornly. He still hadn't completely let go of Lee, still clinging to his arm, and Lee hadn't expected anything else. Tris clearly didn't know any more about the latest, massive, Clarisse and Michael argument – one that seemed to have spread to at least most of their cabin, this time – than he did and Lee rather thought it might take a crowbar to separate his littlest brother from his side any time soon.
"I'm not leaving Michael," Kayla said stubbornly, and Robyn repeated the sentiments with both their unconscious brothers. Austin hesitated, looking at Kayla but then at Lee, and clearly he didn't think he could be civil with Clarisse. Lee made a simple gesture for him to join Sam, and with dragging feet, he did.
In the end, most of the cabin went, leaving Lee with his unconscious brothers, Tris, Robyn and Kayla. That lifted a weight off of Lee's shoulders; he loved his siblings, but all of them together was a lot after a year of isolation, and being put back in charge because their new head counsellor was down for the count was a familiar feeling, but also somewhat overwhelming.
Kayla and Robyn mostly kept to their self-appointed charges; Kayla clearly hadn't been at camp long enough to be trained, and wasn't a natural healer, but she was trying her best, checking Michael's pulse and talking to him, while Robyn mostly fussed over Nathan's ragged stump, with occasional visits to Michael's side instead to make sure his healing was going in the right direction.
Lee had tried to flit between the two as well, only for Robyn to tell him if he tried she would sit on him, then moments later change her mind and ordered Tris to sit on him anyway. Tris had, of course, been more than willing, and Lee once again had a lap full of little brother.
"Are you okay?" Tris asked him quietly, resting his head on Lee's shoulder.
Lee hummed lightly, considering his answer. No, he wasn't, not really, but he had several of his siblings back, they were all still alive – even if two of them had been scarily close calls – and they still loved him, despite the secret he'd kept from them for as long as they'd known him.
"It's the right direction," he eventually replied, which probably wasn't the answer Tris was hoping for, but it was an honest answer, and Lee was done lying to his siblings. He was done with lies in general, if he thought about it, and part of him wondered if his siblings were going to start getting more creative with the truth rather than outright lying, now they knew he could catch the latter.
He thought he'd prefer it if they did; he didn't mind teenage white lies, and if they could tell him those without actually lying, that would be much, much better. But that was a problem for later, once the war was over and Kronos back in Tartarus where he certainly deserved to be.
For now, Lee's biggest concern was getting Clarisse on side, and movement in the sky indicated something drawing close.
"Stupid chariot," Robyn muttered under her breath, and Lee remembered reports of a flying chariot being stolen, remembered Michael's indignancy that he'd given Clarisse 'the chariot' – sans expletives – and put the pieces of the puzzle together just in time for the pegasi to glide to a stop in front of him.
Clarisse hadn't brought any of her siblings with her, but despite that she wasn't alone, either. A tall guy, easily Lee's height, stepped out, shuffling sideways and out of Clarisse's way as the daughter of Ares dismounted and stalked straight over to Lee.
He stood up, shuffling Tris away because Tris didn't need to be involved in this particular conversation, and watched her approach.
Much like Silena had been, in that last call he'd witnessed as Kronos' prisoner, Clarisse was dressed for war. Both wore gleaming armour that was well cared-for and wouldn't fail them in the heat of battle, but that was where the similarities ended. Where Silena had been grace and beauty, Clarisse was strength and brawn. Her spear crackled loudly, electricity coursing through it and promising immediate pain in Lee's future if Clarisse so chose.
She wouldn't hurt him, not once she knew it was him. Lee was sincerely hoping they'd get the identity proving out of the way before the violence started.
The boar's head shaped helmet glared at him menacingly, and from the eye slits Clarisse's own brown eyes duplicated the effect. She didn't look impressed at all, a twisted scowl on her face doing nothing to make her look attractive, but attractiveness had never been part of Clarisse's charm. That was in her strength, her personality, the way she fiercely protected anything that she saw as hers.
"Fletcher!" she barked, back to surnames again, and the sharp point of her spear whistled through the air, coming to a halt just under Lee's chin, far enough from his skin that he wouldn't accidentally cut himself on it if he moved, but close enough that she would have his head in an instant if he put a step wrong. "After the Labyrinth, which wound did you tell me would leave the worst scar?"
Lee remembered that clearly, patching up the girl that was more interested in Chris' welfare than her own, spitting and cursing at him as he patched her up, because someone had to, and Will might have been the better healer, but there were secrets at stake, too, and Lee wasn't letting Will carry so much weight on his shoulders. He'd been twelve.
Clarisse had barely cooperated with him, not even when he'd told her that her wounds would scar, and not nicely, if she didn't behave. He'd worn her down in the end, and while there were several scars hidden beneath her armour that he hadn't been able to completely eliminate, the one that he'd thought at the time would be the worst had actually healed up nicely, once he got hold of it. The scar that had actually ended up the worst had been one across her left hip, deep enough to scour bone but thankfully not break it.
But at the time… "Your lower back," he said. "A telekhine caught you from behind." It had been one of the worst wounds, and certainly one of her biggest blood loss contributors, but once she'd finally let Lee at it, he'd managed to reduce the scarring far more significantly than he'd expected, to his relief.
She eyed him for a few more moments, searching his face for what he could only assume would be some sort of falsehood, before the electricity faded from her spear and she tilted her helmet back.
"You didn't die," she said. "What the fuck happened?"
Lee told her, pausing whenever her eyes drifted over to where Kayla was still kneeling beside an unconscious Michael, and more than once trailing off himself as he looked at the boy behind her, one he'd never dared hope would be safe and sane again. Still, despite the interruptions, he got enough of the story out to give Clarisse the footnotes.
She barely blinked at the revelation of his truth sensing, seemingly more incensed with Luke for spilling the knowledge than Lee for hiding it in the first place. Then again, Clarisse had always been a straight-forward girl, with no time for falsehoods. Lee had only very rarely heard her tell a lie.
There was a moment of silence once Lee finished his recap, and at some point Tris' fingers had found Lee's, twisting between them and gripping them tightly. Clarisse studied him intently, her brain clearly digesting the new information and compartmentalising it, before she asked the question his siblings had all missed, either because they hadn't known or because they'd been too scared to ask.
"Kronos had a spy in camp," she said bluntly. "The idiots didn't tell me directly-" she glared at Michael again, and Lee knew it would be a long time before he got this particular feud of theirs detangled, if he ever managed it "-but too many of our plans kept going wrong. Kronos was using you to check their reports."
Behind him, he heard Robyn take a sharp intake of breath, although he didn't dare turn away from Clarisse to check on her.
"He was," Lee admitted, and the weight of it almost forced him to sit, because Kronos had been using him for that, and at some point or other he'd actually got Lee to work for him, in a strained capacity. Silena might have given the information, but Lee was the reason Kronos had been able to retaliate so hard whenever she tried to keep something from him.
"So who was it?" Clarisse demanded, still as blunt as ever. Who do I need to kill echoed into Lee's mind, even though she hadn't said it in so many words.
Lee didn't want to tell her. Saying it out loud felt like a finality, even though he'd been watching Silena betray camp for over a year. He didn't know where she was now, whether she'd finally joined Kronos' forces properly, or was still pretending to fight for the gods, alongside the Aphrodite cabin.
But he couldn't keep it to himself, and Clarisse wouldn't thank him for trying to protect her from the truth, so he met her eyes squarely and cursed his eyes for somehow finding more tears to fall from somewhere.
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Rating: Teen
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family
Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more)
As always @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic!
<< Chapter 20
Listen to chapter 21 on AO3
It didn’t take long for Joy to return with their siblings, sans Will. Lee ached at the absence, but he didn’t even know where Percy and Will had gone, so until they got news on that, they didn’t know where to go – but once they did know, Lee was going to work out how to transport all of them wherever there was, as long as it was away from the front line.
If it wasn’t away from the front line, he was going to have words with Percy about dragging Will into more danger.
It was a subdued procession of siblings that approached him. They’d rigged up some sort of stretcher out of a blanket or two – no doubt requisitioned from some unguarded cars – and between them, Joy, Robyn, Sally and Elias were carefully bearing a still-unconscious Nathan. He’d been patched up more since Lee had left him with Tris, clean bandages wrapping the worst of the exposed wounds. It didn’t do anything to hide the missing arm – if anything, the sudden mass of bandaging around the mauled shoulder highlighted it, instead.
Alice had Kayla under one arm, the youngest’s eyes rimmed red with tears still spilling down her cheek. Sam was similarly holding onto Austin, and Tris alternated between hovering next to Nathan and darting forwards, leading the way instead.
And that was all of them. Ten siblings, not including Michael or Will, for a total of twelve. Thirteen, including Lee.
Lee had never seen the Apollo cabin number so few in all his years at camp, and feared the reason why.
“Lee!” Tris was the first one to reach him, darting forwards ahead of the rest and slamming straight into Lee’s chest, wrapping his arms around him tightly. Lee gripped him back, burying his face in his brother’s dark, damp hair, and taking a moment to breathe before he had to face everyone else, and the realities that went along with them.
A young voice shrieked “Michael!” and frantic feet started to run, before stopping sharply.
“He’s hurt,” Alice said, almost a snap but gentle enough that it wasn’t, quite. “Be careful, Kayla.” Lee raised his head from Tris’ hair to see the young girl tugging away from Alice’s restraining hand and racing towards him, skidding to a stop on her knees next to Michael in a move that made Lee wince slightly.
“Michael?” she tried, her fingers lacing between Michael’s cautiously. “Michael, wake up.” He didn’t stir and she dissolved into tears, gripping his arm more firmly and starting to shake it, only for Alice to swoop in and grab her.
The older girl didn’t look much better. She’d forgone the make-up she’d refused to leave the cabin without for the whole of the previous summer, but Lee thought that if she hadn’t, the mascara would’ve long since smudged, so it was probably a good thing, even if it made her look younger, more like the barely-teenager that she was than the older teenager she’d been trying to emulate back when she’d only been twelve.
But Alice was sending him looks, like she couldn’t believe he was real, and while he knew she liked Michael, he also knew that for most of their siblings, he had been their first head counsellor, and their longest head counsellor. Alice wasn’t the only one looking at him like he was a minor miracle.
Lee didn’t feel like a miracle of any degree.
“Is this everyone?” he asked, belatedly tacking on, “aside from Will.”
“Yeah,” Robyn threw over her shoulder, one of the few not looking at him. She was kneeling beside Nathan, still fussing over his bandages. The pair of them had been thick as thieves ever since Nathan’s arrival, two years ago, and Lee wasn’t surprised at all to find her sticking to his side like glue now. “Everyone else left.”
“They didn’t come back,” Elias corrected, sitting himself down on Nathan’s other side, cross-legged on the asphalt and hands flopping lazily in his lap. However he’d tied his long locs up before the battle had started to fail, and some of them were escaping confines to pool on the ground next to him. “After… you… Phoebe and Morton decided that was it. They didn’t want to spend their last summer fighting again, so they said goodbye last summer.”
Joy gestured sharply, catching Lee’s attention before her hands started to flicker. “Nye and Xavier got pulled out by their moms,” she signed. “Last we heard they were all still alive. I think Xavier went back to Spain.”
It was those two signs, the hands with three fingers curled and thumb and little finger extended, pulsing and rotating into mirrored thumbs’ ups that settled Lee’s heart.
Still alive.
The absences weren’t because they were dead, it was because they had fled the war while they could, and Lee could never be upset about that. He’d have loved it if all his siblings had been able to flee and get away from it, but that wasn’t really an option for those of them with nowhere else to go, and some of them were too loyal to stay away even if they did have the choice.
It was a choice that had almost killed Tris. Robyn making the same choice would probably save lives even though it risked hers. Alice was young but too stubborn not to come back, and Sally was quieter but still got her own way most of the time.
He didn’t even know if Sam had gone home at the end of last summer. He’d barely known the younger boy at all; he hadn’t even arrived at camp a whole month before the battle that tore Lee away for so long.
The rest of them, the year rounders like Michael, Will and Joy, the new kids Austin and Kayla – none of them had really had a choice. Lee wouldn’t have done, either – but he knew he would’ve chosen to fight even if he had. Michael and Will would have been the same, and so would Nathan. But the others, Joy and Elias… Given the choice, they might have preferred to stay away – they were musicians, and not fighters.
They were fighting anyway.
Lee hated it.
“So what happened to you?” Alice asked, and she was trying to sound sharper, like Robyn would have done if she had been the one to ask the question, but it came out as less a demand and more a plea. “Who did we burn, if it wasn’t you?”
It didn’t feel like the right time for a story, but they were stuck waiting, anyway – even if most of his siblings didn’t know that – and with so many pairs of eyes on him, Lee knew he couldn’t just brush them off. His siblings, at least, he owed the truth to.
He’d tell Michael and Nathan later, and hope that the two of them could stop sniping at each other long enough to listen, because they weren’t anywhere near as bad as Michael with Clarisse, but Nathan loved to push Michael’s buttons and Michael never failed to push right back. Lee was pretty sure he was at least partially doing it on purpose, because he knew Michael did actually like Nathan, or at least accepted him as family – and for Michael, that was a big thing. He still needed to tell Will, too, and maybe Will would be enough of a buffer to stop the sniping.
He tapped Tris on the shoulder, asking him to let go long enough so that he could sit down. He wasn’t telling the story on his feet, with his siblings gathered around on the asphalt like it was story time in elementary school.
Tris grumbled but obliged, giving Lee just enough range of movement to sit himself down, next to Michael, before curling back up in his lap again, the same way he had done back in Kronos’ stone cavern, except this time Lee had the use of his arms and legs, and used the former liberally to pin his little brother in place, almost like an oversized plush. He rested his head on Tris’ shoulder, trying not to feel like Tris was a human shield against the judgement of his siblings and hating himself for the idea even worming itself into his head, because they were his siblings.
The few that hadn’t yet sat followed suit, settling into a loose and sloppy horseshoe that somehow also encompassed the unconscious Michael and Nathan.
“I was told the guy’s name was Marcus,” he started, latching onto Alice’s question as a way to start because it was as good as anywhere else, he supposed. “I don’t know anything else about him. He was never a camper.”
No-one looked particularly surprised at that – if he had been a camper, he’d have been recognised, and not mistaken for Lee. At least, Lee liked to think that his siblings would’ve recognised it wasn’t him if it had been someone else they knew.
“Why go through that effort?” Robyn asked. “Don’t get me wrong, Lee, you’re awesome and I know it, but why did Kronos go that far?”
Lee felt Tris burrow deeper against his chest, a silent support that Lee appreciated more than he could ever say, even though the movement caught the attention of most of his siblings, whose eyes sharpened, clearly knowing they were about to hear something different. Interesting, perhaps, if it was in another context and didn’t directly involve Lee. Apollo kids generally liked interesting – they weren’t often as obvious as Athena kids, but most of them were veritable sponges for new information, too.
He really, really didn’t want to tell them. Didn’t want them to start looking at him differently, using him as a lie detector even if it wasn’t malicious, or even on purpose. Didn’t want to have to deal with the guilt of knowing their lies, of them knowing he knew when they’d lied, and feeling bad for it, or conflicted, or even betrayed. Because he’d never told them, let them lie to his face when he asked them if they’d cleaned their bunk properly or just shoved everything haphazardly under the bed (it was almost, almost always the latter) and smiled and pretended to believe them.
But they deserved to know, and they deserved to know first, before he had to repeat it to Clarisse, and probably most of the rest of camp, too, before they even started to consider believing he hadn’t gone of his own free will – because Lee wasn’t a fool. He could see where some of the other campers, the ones that didn’t understand cabin seven’s mutual adoration for their father, might draw those conclusions.
That didn’t make it easy.
“I…” he started, but a lump formed in his throat and forced him to stop, trying to swallow it back down again.
“I can tell them,” Tris volunteered, his too kind little brother, and Lee choked up again.
“No, no,” he said weakly, clearing his throat a little and swallowing painfully. “No, it’s okay, Tris. I can do it.”
“If you’re sure,” Tris assured him, and Lee hated that his little brother felt the need to try and reassure him, to try and help him with this. It wasn’t on Tris, it should never be on Tris. Tris should never have been involved in this at all.
“I’m sure,” he said, and his voice was thin but it was still true. Still, he kept his eyes on the top of Tris’ head, where his hair was plastered to his scalp and still dripping wet – if Tris had his way, that would be his natural state. Looking at Tris’ parting was much easier than facing his siblings, right then. He wished Michael was still conscious, the one that had known for years and never judged him for it.
None of his siblings pushed him, not even Robyn, who alongside Nathan and Michael could be the pushiest of the lot. Lee appreciated that.
“Not many people know… knew,” he corrected, because thanks to Kronos the number of people that knew was far, far too high, much more so than Lee would ever be comfortable with. “But I inherited… something rare from Dad.” He took a deep breath, then faltered and dived down a sideways tangent. “Luke knew. He was… when I was younger, when Luke was nice and didn’t show any signs of wanting to raise Kronos and kill us all… I told him about it.”
“And he told Kronos,” Alice guessed, but from her tone it was less a guess and more a foregone conclusion.
Strictly speaking, Kronos had somehow dragged it out of Luke’s brain after taking over his body, rather than Luke telling him of his own accord, but it was close enough that the difference didn’t really matter. It mattered a little bit, that Luke hadn’t thrown Lee’s secret straight to the titan as an offering, but also if Luke hadn’t raised Kronos in the first place, it would never have been an issue at all.
“Yeah,” Lee confirmed, figuring the simple answer was best. They didn’t need to hear about the rest of it. That bit wasn’t important. “Kronos decided it was useful.”
“But Lee wouldn’t use it for him,” Tris piped up, and he sounded so proud that it almost broke Lee’s heart. “He held out, even when Kronos hurt him.” Then his voice faltered, and Lee had the horrific feeling that his little brother was crying. “That’s why Kronos grabbed me,” he sobbed, and the entire gathering of their siblings took a single, indignant intake of breath.
Clearly, neither Lee nor Tris needed to say anything more on that subject. Lee glanced up at them to see a ring of furious faces. Even Austin and Kayla seemed to understand enough, and they’d never met Lee before now.
“That bastard,” Robyn growled, one hand balling into a fist. “I’m going to punch that bastard in his smug face.” There were various murmurs of agreement from the rest of Lee’s siblings, and Lee couldn’t take that, couldn’t have any more of his siblings in Kronos’ vicinity.
“Stay away from him,” he begged, and it felt like a low blow to gesture at Michael in a reminder of how easily Kronos could take any of them out, but he did it anyway, because he needed them to stay safe.
The silence that followed was a heavy, awkward one, until Sally broke it, her voice small but steady, asking the one question Lee had been dancing around answering even though he knew he had to.
“What is it you can do?” she asked. “It must be powerful, if Kronos wanted it.”
Lee made a disagreeing sound, one hand letting go of Tris to see-saw.
Tris, his amazing little traitor of a brother, nodded vigorously. “It is,” he said, and he didn’t sound like he’d stopped crying, but he did sound proud of Lee, like he didn’t find it somewhat unsettling and potentially terrifying.
There was no way he was going to escape answering now. He also knew that if he didn’t answer it now, he wasn’t going to at all.
“I’m a truth sensor,” he said, tempted to murmur it into Tris’ hair but forcing himself to say it clearly, just so he didn’t have to repeat himself. “Or more accurately, I can tell whenever anyone says a lie.”
The silence that fell felt damning. Lee didn’t risk looking at them, burying his face back into Tris’ hair, aware he was definitely using his youngest brother as a human shield and hating himself for it but unable to pull away. Tris gripped hold of his arms, not letting him move even if he tried.
It was Austin that eventually broke that silence, the little brother that Lee didn’t know, had no idea what to expect from.
Also the only little brother that had never lied to him, if only because he’d never had the chance.
“That sounds pretty cool,” he said. “No-one gets to lie to you and get away with it, right?”
Lee winced, but before he could say anything, Alice let out a horrified gasp.
“That means you knew I was lying that time you asked me what I’d been doing with Tiana behind the Hephaestus cabin that one time!” she exclaimed, sounding almost mortified, and Lee winced again.
“I try not to call out lies,” he admitted. “Lying is normal, it’s natural. I don’t police them. And just because I know you lied doesn’t mean I know what the truth is, either,” he added, glancing at Alice with her horrified face. Given Tiana was an unclaimed kid with a fondness for making things out of metal, he imagined it was probably something innocent enough – he seemed to recall there had been some incident or other shortly afterwards with fire and mechanical creatures whirring around.
“So why did Kronos want a human lie detector?” Robyn asked. “Did he not trust his own followers?”
“No,” Lee said bluntly. “He didn’t.”
“Was he right not to?” Austin leaned in, looking eager. Lee comforted himself with the knowledge that Austin was too young to put things together, and that he didn’t know Lee. Some of the older ones, the ones that had known him longer, were starting to give him considering looks that he didn’t think he liked.
“Michael knows,” Joy said, her quiet, rasping voice cutting across the silence before Lee had to answer. “Doesn’t he?”
Lee glanced at their brother and nodded. “He figured me out a few years ago,” he admitted.
Robyn snorted. “Of course he did.”
He risked looking back at his siblings again. None of them seemed to be looking at him like they suddenly hated him, so that was a good start.
Then Tris twisted in his arms, and gave Lee a tight, tight hug. “He hurt him,” he said, turning his head back to everyone else, and there was intent in the movement. An expectation, and Lee wasn’t sure what for, but then there was a sea of movement and he once again found himself in the middle of a pile of Apollo kids, all of them clinging to him somehow.
It was acceptance, sincere and warm, and Lee didn’t mean to break down, had hoped that his siblings wouldn’t hate him, but with the proof and the love and everything…
Tris’ hair was already wet with saltwater. It wouldn’t notice if it got any wetter.
